Allison Kraft: Author of Paranormal Romance

Look for me during Pet Week!

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 20:51:00 +0000

Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve blogged. I guess the holidays and day job have kept me busier than I realized. Well, I’m about to come out of hiding for a short time, to support a great cause and do something I really love: talk about my cats.

This week is Pet Week, where a group of bloggers are hosting guest blogs to help out Paws with a Cause, a group that trains Assistance Dogs nationally for people with disabilities and provides lifetime team support which encourages independence. (I copied that line from their site, since they said it better than I could.) I may be a cat person, but they’re doing great work for both dogs and people. Help them out if you can! As someone with vision issues, I’m grateful there are organizations like this out there to help if the worst ever happens. (Knock on wood that it doesn’t.)

On March 7, I will have a guest blog over at Bitten By Paranormal Romance. They’re a great blog about – you guessed it – paranormal romances. And I’m not just saying that because they gave Destined a 5-star review. (Though I can’t deny it helps. :D) My guest blog will be about my four cats and how they came to live with us. Here’s a photo as a little teaser (and to show how adorable they are).

How can you resist those cute little things?

I’ll post here again with a link to my guest blog on the 7th, but in the meantime, go check out the other guests this week, and follow the links to some of the other blogs hosting Pet Week. It’s for a good cause, and really, can anyone have too many stories about cute animals?

Spirit Day

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 19:34:00 +0000

While I'm not part of the official Authors Against Bullying event that's going on today, I still wanted to post something on the subject, because I think it’s an important problem that doesn’t get as much attention as it should.

I'm lucky enough that I was never really bullied in school. Teased, sure. I think most kids are at one point or another. And I was a good candidate for teasing, as I was never part of the popular crowd (nor did I want to be: I had nothing in common with them and many were your typical “mean girls”). I was shy and quiet and awkward, with glasses and a frizzy perm and not the greatest fashion sense (even for the 80s). And I was smart, which is always the kiss of death when you’re a kid. But I was okay with my lot in school, because I had friends and no one bothered me too much.

Except on the bus. I lived close enough to grade school to walk, so middle school was my first experience being bussed to and from school. I was excited at first because it meant no more walking in the snow. Unfortunately, there were a couple of boys on that particular bus that decided I was a perfect target with my introverted demeanor and nerdy appearance. I don’t remember much about what they did, though for the most part I think it was generally verbal taunting more than anything physical. But one incident will always stand out in my mind.

On one particular day in seventh grade, the boys were sitting behind me and the bigger one (it’s always the bigger one, isn’t it?) decided it would be funny to pull my hair. So he leaned over the back of my seat and began to tug out my hair one strand at a time. It hurt, but I tried to ignore him because that’s what they always say to do when someone is bothering you. After a few minutes, however, something in me snapped and I spun around, yelled “stop it!” and smacked him across the face, hard enough to leave a red mark.

It takes a lot to get me really mad. I’m generally an even-tempered sort of person, and even when I do get angry, I tend to bottle it up inside and keep it to myself. I still don’t know what it was about that day that made me snap, but it’s the first and only time I can remember actually hitting someone. I know violence is never the answer, and it’s not something I would ever suggest anyone else use to solve their problems, but in that particular situation I can’t deny it felt pretty damn good.

Until the bus driver stopped and got up to face us. I was all ready to be in trouble, braced for a lecture or punishment. I don’t remember exactly what she said anymore, but she surprised me by not yelling at me. Oh, I think there was some sort of half-hearted “we shouldn’t hit people” in there, but what I remember most is that she essentially told the boy, “You asked for it, dumbass.” Except without the dumbass part. That part was understood.

Those boys never bothered me again.

Okay, so maybe my story isn’t the best example of how to deal with a bully, but for a painfully shy girl who never spoke up for herself, it was a big thing for me. I shocked myself almost as much as I shocked the brat that was tormenting me. (I probably shouldn’t still feel glee at that memory, but I’m only human.) If there’s any moral to my story it’s that once I finally stood up to the bully, he left me alone. Not so much because I hurt him: I was way too weak for my little slap to do more than sting for a second. Maybe I embarrassed him, or maybe I let him know that I wasn’t going to put up with his treatment of me any longer. Maybe he stopped because the bus driver was watching him more closely from then on. Whatever the reason, he stopped and I didn’t dread those bus rides any longer.

By the time high school rolled around, my family had moved to Florida, I got contacts, dumped the perm and was lucky enough that the 90s didn’t have much in the way of fashion. Concert t-shirts, jeans and flannel shirts were all you needed to be stylin’ back then. No one on my high school bus bothered me and the only people that teased me were my fellow band geek friends. All in all, I was pretty lucky.

For a post with a much better moral than mine, go check out Rachel Caine's about the role innocent bystanders play in bullying that I think makes an important point.

Kitchen is done!

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 19:59:00 +0000

As mentioned in the last blog post I wrote, my spare time lately has been filled with a big kitchen reno my family has been doing. Interior design is a hobby of mine, so I had a lot of fun with this. Once upon a time, I considered trying to become a pro designer, even started an at-home course for it, but eventually realized that I only really enjoy interior design when I’m doing my own interior, to my own taste. :) So hobby it is.

After months of work (mostly on weekends, so it’s been stretched out), we have DIYed ourselves a pretty nice-looking kitchen for about 1/10 the cost of those renos you see on HGTV all the time. In other words, instead of spending $30,000 – $50,000, we did everything for between $3000-$4000. Not too shabby. Granted, we saved a big chunk of money by not getting new appliances, but our current appliances work just fine. I love HGTV, but after a while it gets tiring to watch show after show talking about how every kitchen HAS TO HAVE granite counters and stainless steel appliances. Sorry, but that’s just silly. Your kitchen can look nice without them. Sure stainless would look nice with what we’ve done, but it’s not worth the added expense just to be more matchy.

Some before-and-after shots, because photography is another hobby and I couldn’t resist snapping a lot of photos. (click each for a bigger view)

For those interested, here’s what we did:

New paint on the walls and ceiling. (After scraping off the horrific popcorn. I’m not sure we’ll ever attempt THAT again.) That alone made a big difference, given the dark green we used to have on the walls. Replacing the florescent light fixture wasn’t an option, since it was recessed into the ceiling, so we tweaked it a little by adding moulding around the edges and recessing the plastic light panels some. An inexpensive change, but it looks a lot nicer and makes the ceiling feel a little taller somehow. This is a closer view of it:

Cabinets: The biggest project. We couldn’t afford to replace them, so we refaced them instead. First, we removed the row of uppers over the sink to open the room a little more and clear the view into the living room. We have so many cabinets, we were able to rearrange all our junk into the others with no problem. (We have 39 cabinets total, and that’s after removing the 8 uppers.) The next step was getting rid of those awful wood strips/handles. They were attached with screws and a little glue, so not too hard to get off, but we had to replace them with something because without them, not all the doors covered the entire opening of the cabinets behind them. So we went to Home Depot and found some strips of wood that were nearly the perfect height/depth to match up, cut the lengths to size and screwed them in. There’s a slight line where they meet, but it’s not very obvious unless you look for it, and it was a hell of a lot cheaper than new custom cabinet doors would have been! After that, we primed everything (the doors aren’t wood, but a laminate-covered board), then painted them a dark brown. We’ll probably end up getting some kind of sealer to paint over it though, because we’ve noticed even with the super-sticky primer, the paint chips and scratches pretty easily. New hardware completed the updated look, and the whole thing cost just under $200!

Counters: This was the biggest expense. There isn’t really anything you can do to a laminate counter to make it look better other than replace it. Granite and Quartz are nice, but too pricey, so we found a good sale at Lowe’s on a Formica Solid Surface counter that would update the room without breaking the bank. It’s a nice stone feel, with much less upkeep than granite (no sealing, and if you scratch it, it can be sanded down like new). It looks pretty sharp with the dark cabinets. We chose the Crema Terrazzo color. Here is a closer image of it:

We didn’t have a backsplash before, and it was something I really wanted, so we spent some time comparing what was available. We finally decided on a mosaic pattern we liked and headed off to Home Depot to buy it, but once we got there with our paint swatch from the cabinets and compared the two, it turned out the colors didn’t go together as well as we expected. Luckily, there was another mosaic in stock that ended up being a perfect match. Not only did the browns go well, but there were little stainless steel tiles mixed in that matched nicely to our new cabinet hardware. Here’s a link to the pattern.

Our old kitchen floor was a gray ceramic tile that, at the time the house was built, was probably a premium add-on. It was nice, but over time we’ve gotten pretty sick of it. For one, it’s so hard (I think the builders glued it right to the concrete subfloor rather than lay any kind of barrier underneath to cushion it) that anything you drop shatters on impact. And for another, due to that lack of barrier, as the house has settled over the years, cracks have started to form in it. Between that and general chipping from use, it was looking pretty crappy. Also, gray wasn’t going to go with our new color scheme, so a new floor was needed. Problem was, we didn’t want more hard tile (or the work that would go into removing the current tile), so we found a different kind of flooring at a local surplus store that works really well with our new design. It’s essentially a laminate wood – the kind where the planks lock together and float over a thin foam under… thing. But instead of a wood face, it was designed to look like tiles. You can’t really tell it’s not tile until you walk on it. The real test will be the next time we drop something. By getting this kind of floor, we were able to install it right on top of the tile. Much less work, and with no grouting to deal with, it’ll probably be easier to clean.

So that’s our new kitchen. Now that the work is done, maybe I can get back to editing that damn book…

Happy Anniversary!

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 19:50:00 +0000

A year ago this week, I published DESTINED. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year already!

Technically, August 24 was the official Amazon publish date, but I didn’t “go public” with the book until a few days later. I wanted my mother to be the first to see it, as a birthday gift, so August 29th was when I finally came out to the world as a self-published author. Admittedly, I planned to have more books published by now, but the process takes some time, and my next book needs a lot of editing and polishing before it’s ready to go out in the world. And while I’d love to say that day is near, it will probably be at least a few months (possibly more) before I publish again. My goal is to have the next book available in time for the holiday season. Here’s hoping I make it.

My excuse for being so behind is pretty much this: I’m slow. I’m a perfectionist, which slows me down even in the best of situations, but I’m also a procrastinator and easily distracted. These last few months, there have been outside distractions keeping me from finishing my edits, and the book has more or less been collecting dust while I tended to them. I’ve gotten things settled so that there’s really only one major distraction left, and one that should only keep me occupied on the weekends. But it’s a big one.

We’re renovating our kitchen. It’s a lot of fun, and long overdue, but it’s time-consuming and a lot of work. I’d say we’re nearly halfway done at this point. We’ve taken down some upper cabinets that were blocking the view and closing off the space, scraped the awful 1980s popcorn off the ceiling and repainted the walls. The new countertop is ordered (they’re coming to measure for it later today) and we’ve got a basic plan in place for sprucing up the dated cabinet doors. We have too many cabinets to replace them completely given our small budget, be we’re going to do a little refacing to make them more modern, then paint them and add hardware.

Here is the “before” shot. Pardon the mess. (Click to see a bigger version)

As you can see, we have a very 80s/early 90s kitchen design right now. At the time, it was a great thing: our house was built as a model home, with all the fancy upgrades. These European-style cabinets were all the rage then, as well as the mauve carpet that we’ve slowly replaced with wood floors (or newer, not-mauve carpet). The entire house was done in mauve and gray, something I loved at the time because I was a teenage girl and pink was pretty. As we revamp room by room, it’s slowly changing to a more neutral (okay, brown) color scheme. For all we know, in 10 years people will look at at it and go “wow, this house is so 2010s.” But for now, we like it.

This is a before/after of our formal living room, which we redecorated a few years back. Click for bigger, or go here for another view of the finished design.

I also redid my bathroom, bedroom and walk-in closet, but photos of that don’t’ show the results as well. I love interior design. There was a time I thought about trying to do it professionally, but I eventually realized that I only truly enjoy it when I’m designing something to my own taste. I’m not sure I’d be able to design other people’s spaces; not unless they liked the exact same things I like. As it is, I have a hard enough time convincing the rest of my family to do what I want. ;)

Anyway, that’s my explanation for being so absent lately, and for not having the next book out as soon as I’d promised. And now that this blog post is done, I’m going to go do some of that editing I’ve been talking about!

This is why we can’t have nice things

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 20:41:00 +0000

Photo credit: Stewart via Flickr Creative Commons

There’s been a bit of craziness going on this week in the world of writers and book bloggers, and the fallout makes me sad. As usual, a few people behave badly and it ruins things for the rest of us. It’s frustrating, but I can’t be too angry about it because the reactions are, in my opinion, completely justified.

For those who haven’t been following it, there’s been a lot of drama over on GoodReads the last week or so regarding authors, reviews and book bloggers. I love GoodReads, and have always enjoyed the community there, but this is the Internet, after all. Drama was bound to happen one way or another. It’s the nature of the beast.

This particular drama stemmed from reviewers being attacked by authors who couldn’t handle critical reviews of their books. Many of these authors were indies, or self-published, but some were traditionally published as well. It blew up, as things online tend to do, and people started to “bully” these authors, which blew up even more as everything got completely out of hand and another group of people formed with the aim to stop these “bullies,” and by doing so basically became bullies themselves. (Here’s an article that explains it better than I can: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/foz-meadows/stop-the-gr-bullies-a-response_b_1690469.html) As a result, many book bloggers have decided to change their policies and no longer accept review requests from self-published authors, in an effort to protect themselves from future crazies.

As a self-published author myself, this is sad news. However, given the impetus for the policy changes, I can’t really fault them. Too many authors lately have been acting like children: attacking bloggers for giving honest reviews, pouting when they don’t review their books immediately, threatening to find their personal information and expose them. Grown-ups should not behave this way. Not only is it unprofessional, but that is not how you treat another human being. The Internet has stripped away our manners. People feel like they can say and do whatever they want online because they’re not faced with the people they’re talking to. Well, those are still people, and your mother raised you better than that. Don’t even get me started on how people behave when discussing politics. I may completely avoid the Internet in September and October!

But this post isn’t about politics. It’s about authors and book bloggers and how recent events have changed that dynamic.

I love book bloggers. Without them, I would have very few sales outside of my family and friends. And while I love that those family and friends enjoyed my book and posted good reviews about it, it’s the impartial reviews from bloggers and other readers that helps sell a book, even if those reviews aren’t all 5 stars. So I’m grateful to the critical reviewers just as much as to those who loved the book and gave it heaps of praise. (I still prefer the praise, of course. Who wouldn’t?) Having those less-than-glowing reviews help give my book credibility. As a reader, if I see a book with only a few reviews, and all of them 4 or 5 stars, my first instinct is to write it off because they’re probably all written by the author’s friends. So when I got my first 3-star review, I was actually kind of excited. I even have a couple of 2-stars now, though no 1-stars yet (knock on wood). As long as my overall rating is good, I feel like the variety of reviews gives my book a legitimacy that will hopefully attract more readers. The more reviews and exposure I get, the better, and book bloggers are essential for that because I’m terrible at promoting myself.

However, I don’t feel that book bloggers are my personal marketing tools, or that they have any obligation to me as the writer of a book they’ve been given to review. Book bloggers have lives outside of their blog. They have jobs and families like the rest of us, and can’t always read 24 hours a day. I can’t even imagine the sheer number of review requests some of them get, or the size of their TBR piles. Hell, my TBR pile is huge, and those are only the books that I bought or checked out from the library to read for fun. Imagine having that on top of piles of books you’ve been sent to read by publishers and authors. I read pretty fast (I’ve already read 65 books this year), and I think I would be overwhelmed with all of that staring me down day after day. Then to have to write a thoughtful, informative and entertaining review for each one? I wouldn’t be able to do it. And because I know I couldn’t do it, I have immense respect for those who do. Which is why I would never, in a million years, attack them for sharing their opinion or whine at them for not reviewing my book fast enough (or at all) after sending them a copy. I’ve sent out a lot of review requests in the months (nearly a year now!) since I released DESTINED, and while most bloggers were interested enough to ask for the ePub or Kindle file, not all have gotten around to reviewing it. I’m all right with that. I understood at the time I sent the requests that they have long lists of books to read, and that mine would most likely end up at the bottom of said list. My being self-published probably doesn’t help bump me up either, but again, I accept that. I’m happy they were interested enough to say yes, and that’s enough for me. If they ever get time to read it and decide to write a review, that’s icing on the cake. It doesn’t cost me anything to send that ePub or Kindle file, after all. And if they read it and don’t like it, and therefore decide against writing a review, I accept that as well. Most bloggers are very clear in their review policy that they may not review every book they read, or read every book they are given. Why is this concept so hard to grasp?

I will NEVER comment to a review on GoodReads or Amazon or any other book review site, good or bad. I will comment to a blogged review if it’s one I personally requested only to say thank you, unless the blogger or another commenter asks a specific question of me. If a reviewer mentions something in a review that I disagree with, I will keep it to myself. I’ve had reviewers—not bloggers, just general reader reviews— get character names wrong, mention things that didn’t actually happen (or question things that did happen, but that they seem to have missed), or criticize particular choices I made in the plot or pacing. Sometimes I agree with these criticisms, while other times I admit there is a temptation to reply and defend myself, especially if a critical point is based on something the reader missed or misunderstood. But I won’t do that because I don’t believe it’s my place to reply to reviews in that manner. GoodReads and other review sites are there for readers to share their opinions, not for authors to soothe their egos. If you’re going to be an author, you have to develop a thick skin about reviews. Not everyone is going to love your baby, no matter how amazing you think it is. Just like there will always be people who love something that others think is pure crap. That’s the great thing about books: there’s something out there for everyone.

So while I’m disappointed that there will be fewer book bloggers out there willing to read my next release (if I ever finish editing the damn thing), I don’t blame them for needing to change their policies. Self-publishing is a wonderful thing, but it’s a double-edged sword. It’s fabulous because anyone can publish a book, but at the same time… anyone can publish a book. Not everyone that publishes is ready for what comes next. Once you hit that “publish” button and send your book out into the world, you also give up control over what happens to it. You’ve done your part, now it’s time for readers to do theirs: read it and, if so moved, discuss it with other readers. Take any criticism that comes along (silently) and use it to make your next book better. That’s what I’m doing. All I can do now is hope that, by the time I release my next book, some of this drama has died down and bloggers will be more open to accepting self-published books again.

A short Titanic Tuesday post

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 18:27:00 +0000

I know, it's been forever since I've blogged. It's no secret I'm not very good at keeping up with this, so I apologize again.

Last weekend, we took a short vacation to visit some family up in the Blue Ridge mountains, and along the way made a stop to see the traveling Titanic Exhibit. This is probably the 4th or 5th time I’ve been to one of them, but it never gets old for me, even though I’m no longer using the excuse of book research to attend them. The exhibitions are always changing around the artifacts, so every time there’s something new on display. This one was a little smaller than others I’ve seen, but still interesting. Unlike some I’ve been to, there was no tour guide, so you wandered the exhibit rooms at your own speed.

The reason I’m writing about it is because at the end, I had a moment of life imitating art that I had to share. Those of you who have read Destined will get the significance. When you enter the exhibit, you are given a “boarding pass” with information about a passenger that sailed on the Titanic. At the end, you can match your name up with the list of survivors & victims to find out if your person lived. A little morbid, but it’s a nice way to make the exhibit more interactive and personal, because you can’t help to want to root for your passenger to survive. My family got all First Class passengers (boarding at Cherbourg), so we were hopeful. My passenger was Leila Meyer, who was traveling to New York with her husband, banker Edgar Meyer, to attend the funeral of her father, Andrew Saks. Yes, that Saks: founder of Saks Department Stores. Despite that claim to fame, I hadn’t heard of her before this, so I didn’t know what her fate would be. I also didn’t know the other two passengers we were given, Helen Ostby and Emil Brandeis. If only our passengers were in Second Class, I might have known them better!

Leila Meyer survived, but her husband did not. Their two-year-old daughter had not been traveling with them, so she was safe at home. Between the inheritance from Leila’s father’s estate ($100,000 plus) and nearly twice that from her husband’s, she was pretty much set financially. She remarried and died at the age of 71, never speaking publicly about the disaster.

Helen Ostby was traveling with her father on a research trip for his jewelry business. They’d been in Europe and North Africa, and were returning home to Rhode Island. She survived and spoke later about the voyage, recalling the luxury of the ship and lack of panic as everyone went up on deck after striking the iceberg. They all went up on deck to the boats right away, but her father returned to his cabin to get warmer clothes. Helen never saw him again. Also of interest is her account of the sinking, which made no mention of the ship breaking in two:

There had been no panic. But at the very end, we could see and hear that the people on board were realizing there was no place to go. As the ship began to stand on end, we heard a big rumbling, rattling noise as if everything was being torn from its moorings inside the ship. All of a sudden that stopped, and she stood on end very quietly for a minute, then went down like an arrow.

We thought that, being a First Class passenger, Emil Brandeis had a better chance at survival, but unfortunately, he did not make it. Brandeis was the son of Jonas Brandeis, founder of the Brandeis Department Store, and was returning home early from a vacation to visit family in Europe. There is no mention of why he changed his plans: perhaps in order to sail on the famous new luxury liner?

As we were studying the list, I overheard a couple next to us talking to one of the exhibit employees. He was stationed there to answer questions and help people find their passengers, and had just asked them if they were having trouble with theirs. I couldn’t resist eavesdropping, partly to see if I would recognize the names, and partly to check up on the employee’s knowledge. One had a member of the Allison family, and he immediately launched into the story of how nearly the entire family perished because they stayed on board to search for their infant son, Trevor, unaware that their nurse, Alice Cleaver, had already gotten him onto a lifeboat. It’s one of the sadder stories in First Class, as their young daughter, Loraine, was the only child in First or Second Class that was not saved. I have to give the exhibit employee credit for knowing his stuff, but what caught my attention most was the passenger in question. For those who have read Destined, you might recognize that the Allison family was used there as well, in a very similar situation to mine. It was a little creepy, to be honest. Of all the passengers those people could have had, what were the chances they’d have one of the Allisons?

The last Paris blog, I promise!

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Thu, 31 May 2012 19:46:00 +0000

Not that it’s any surprise (to me, at least), but it took me more blogs than intended to cover my week in Paris. Between my tendency towards long-windedness and the number of photographs I took, cramming it all into one or two posts would have been too much. So thank you for sticking with me, and I promise this one is it! After this it will be back to the usual (and probably infrequent, because I’m terrible at blogging regularly) book/writing posts.

The last two days of my trip were relatively uneventful. The weather took a nasty, cold turn, which kept me indoors more and made it hard to get decent photos. The first of the last days (Tuesday), was not only cold (in the 40s) but rainy and windy. A triple threat of unpleasantness, let me tell you. Because of that, the majority of my Tuesday was spent—I’m almost ashamed to admit this—in a mall. A Paris mall, but still a mall. I did get a little tourism in there before and after the mall, though.

First order of the day, however, was a little sleeping in. I had to get up early the day before for my Giverny excursion, so I treated myself to a little laziness, knowing the forecast wasn’t good, and slept until around 10am or so. Then I puttered around, taking my time getting ready and out the door. Finally, I was out and on my way to the Saint Denis Basilica, a big old church on the northern edge of the city. Actually, it might even be in a suburb, but it’s close enough to be on the main metro line, and was easy to get to. Unfortunately, it was still cold and windy outside, so I hurried to the church from the stop rather than linger at one of the big street markets set up nearby.

I just realized I never posted a photo of my apartment. The bed is over by the TV in the back. Excuse the mess. I was in the middle of packing to go home when I took this. :) There are better photos on their AirBnB page.

The Basilique de Saint Denis

Despite this being my third trip to Paris, and despite all the reading and research I did to prepare for the second trip, I had never heard of this church before. What makes it so interesting (because Paris has a metric ton of churches, and after a while they all start to blur together) is that this particular church holds the tombs of nearly every French king all the way back to around the 7th or 8th century. Including, to my surprise, the tombs of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Though it's not really their entire bodies there, but a few remains that were dug up in 1815 and moved there. According to Wikipedia, they were originally buried in a mass grave in the Madeline churchyard, so there's no telling if what was moved to Saint Denis was really their remains or now. Their tombs are in a darker section of the church, with very low lighting, so I was unable to get a photograph without using flash. For all I knew, flash photography was allowed, but I don't like to use the flash in churches, so I refrained. The rest of the tombs were better lit, but still dark enough that most of my photos were blurry. I did mange one decent one, with my camera phone of all things.

The photo below is how most of the tombs looked: multiple bodies grouped together under one slab, with statues on top. Each grouping was labeled with the names and dates of whoever was there, in addition to some extra information in French about their rule. The grouping below was of particular interest to me because some of the tombs belong to my own ancestors. One branch of my family tree can be traced back to Charlemagne, and within that branch are a bunch of European rulers: some from England, some from Scotland, one from Italy, and a couple from France. I went to Saint Denis hoping that they might be there, and they were! In this group of tombs is Robert II (972-1031), his wife Constance (986-1032) and their son Henry I (1008-1060). Another of my ancestors, Charlemagne's father, Pepin le Bref (the Short) is also there, but I didn't get a good photo of his tomb. Supposedly he's the one who built the original church that sat where Saint Denis is today. Also, Robert II's father, Hugh Capet, is supposed to be at Saint Denis, but I don't remember seeing his tomb anywhere. There were so many, it's very possible I missed it.

I spent a good amount of time in the church, partly because I was reading every name to look for ancestors, and partly because I knew it was nasty outside and was avoiding going back out into it. But eventually I had to, and found it had rained while I was inside. It was still misting a bit, and even colder and windier than before, so I hurried off to the metro station, pausing once when a Japanese couple stopped me to ask for directions to Sacre Coeur. Poor things, they were seriously lost, but I was able to tell them what metro station to go to, and I think they understood me well enough.

It was at this point I decided I needed to find something indoors to do. I still hadn’t gotten any souvenir shopping done, so I headed for Forum des Halles, an underground shopping mall that sounded promising. It was huge, and busy, but most importantly, the stores were heated. Ahhh, heat. I struck out on the shopping front, sadly, even though the stores were more in my budget. I just couldn’t find anything I liked, which became a trend during my week there, and I ended up coming home mostly empty-handed. It made packing easier, but I felt like a shopping failure. A week in Paris, one of the world’s shopping capitals, and I couldn’t find anything to buy! What a shame.

The only other thing I did that day (I spent quite a few hours in Les Halles) was metro over to the Pantheon, another big old stone church I’d never gotten around to visiting before. It’s not used as a church today, but rather as a really huge mausoleum. Rather than royalty, the French citizens buried here are regular, but famous, citizens. Some of the more widely-known are Marie & Peter Curie, Louis Braille, Voltaire and Victor Hugo. Like Saint Denis, their tombs were in dark places not easily photographed without a flash, so I only have very blurry pictures.

The Pantheon

Foucault's Pendulum, in the main area of the Pantheon. They were renovating inside, so it was hard to avoid the construction stuff.

Unlike Les Halles, the Pantheon was not heated. It was pretty cold and drafty inside, so I didn’t linger too long. I wanted to go to a restaurant for dinner, but my plans were once again foiled, this time by lack of wifi with which to look up where to go. Frustrated, I gave up and went back to my apartment to warm up, stopping by a supermarket along the way to get something to cook. I ended up with bread and soup for my meal, but the soup was hot and yummy, and I didn’t burn down the apartment with the hot plate, so I considered it a successful dinner. Actually, I did try to go to a restaurant that night. There was a highly-reviewed place just a block from my apartment that I’d never noticed before, and their website claimed they served dinner starting at 6:30, but when I went over there (at 6:30), they were closed and even though I could see shadows inside (the windows were heavily tinted), my presence outside was either unnoticed or ignored, because no one ever came to open up. It was too cold to hang around on the street, so after waiting five minutes or so, I gave up and went to the supermarket instead.

On my last day in Paris, I did nothing but try to shop. Try being the key word there. I went over to the Louvre area again after reading that there are a lot of souvenir places along the Rue de Rivoli, and walked down the street for a while. Unfortunately, the souvenirs shops there sell the exact same crap as the ones in Montmartre, so I had already seen it all. No luck there. I popped by the Palais Royal to sit for a little while. There was a café near there I wanted to visit for lunch, but I changed my mind when I saw how many people were smoking outside (and it was still cold). I probably could have eaten indoors, but I wasn’t that hungry yet, so I wandered some more, ended up back at the Louvre, and went down into the Carrousel du Louvre shopping center, which is adjacent to the Louvre, underneath the Arc du Carrousel. Sadly, this was another designer mall with prices out of my budget, but it was warm and had a food court. I had my worst meal here, incidentally. Really nasty, half-cold lasagna for €9. I should have gone back to the café.

I had time for one last shopping trip, and after a little research, found that the area not far from my apartment, République, was supposed to have a lot of stores. So I headed that way, wandered around, finally found something for a couple of people (but not nearly everyone I wanted to get souvenirs for), and called it a night. I had to get back to the apartment and start packing.

For the most part, I saw everything I wanted to see on this trip. I never got to the Chateau du Vincennes, or took an excursion to Fontainebleau, but I need something to do the next time, right? Oh, there was one other place I managed to visit:

5 Rue des Pyramides

So what building is that? Well, according to the Contract Ticket List, 5 Rue des Pyramides in Paris, France is the address Henriette Yrois listed as her last place of residence before boarding the Titanic. I have no idea which apartment would have been hers, or if it was even any of those windows, but that’s the general building at #5. One of those may have been her home. When I knew I was going to Paris, I couldn’t resist tracking down her apartment.

If you’d like to see more of my pictures, you can look at them all at my Flickr Paris album. I didn’t post every one on the blog, and the first half of that album is from my previous trip, so there are a lot more photos over there.

Thanks for sticking with me while I recount my trip. It really was a fantastic vacation, despite the sometimes crappy weather. The cough I brought home hasn’t quite left me, so that particular souvenir just keeps on giving, but otherwise I’m fully recovered and back to life as usual. And already wondering where I should go next. I’m aiming for Italy next year!

Almost the last of the Paris blogs

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Tue, 29 May 2012 22:30:00 +0000

I intended to write this last blog up over the long holiday weekend, but laziness prevailed and I instead spent most of the weekend curled up with a book rather than working on the computer. That’s what holidays are for, right?

I wanted to sum up the last half of my week in one blog, but it didn’t work out that way. Too many photos taken on the first day, so I’ll have to keep the last two for another blog. But that one will be the last, I swear.

Monday morning dawned bright and clear, but cold. I wasn’t feeling too great, either, so I was worried how my day was going to go, but the ickiness eventually passed. The forecast had it warming up later (which it did), but initially it was a pretty chilly morning, which messed with my plans a little. This was the day I’d decided to take my one excursion out of the city, to see Monet’s house and gardens in GIverny. Part of that plan was to rent a bike once we arrived in Vernon (the train station closest to Giverny), and ride it to Monet’s house rather than wait for a bus to take me, but it was a little cold for bikes, I still wasn’t feeling completely great yet, and no one else was renting them, so I chickened out and got in the bus line with everyone else. If I have one regret about that day, it’s that I didn’t go ahead and rent the bike anyway, but at the time it seemed like the best thing to do.

My research before making the trip told me that the bus from Vernon to Giverny was 2 euros each way, so I had my coin all ready to hand to the driver. Only when I boarded, he announced the fare was €6.50 instead. I scrabbled to get the right amount, nearly fell on my face as I turned to walk down the aisle (there was a step I hadn’t seen, and I tripped), then staggered back to an empty seat, feeling confused and mildly embarrassed at my clumsiness. I searched the ticket I’d been given to try to see if I’d paid a round-trip fare or one-way, but couldn’t find anything, so I decided I would walk back rather than chance paying another €6.50 to return. Later Internet research told me the €6.50 was round-trip, so I basically wasted half of it by walking back, but the return walk was lovely, so I don’t regret it too much (my feet did, however).

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The train ride to Vernon was uneventful—though I almost missed the stop because I didn’t hear the announcement for Vernon—and the bus ride was quick. The line to get into the attraction wasn’t too bad, so my not being able to buy tickets at FNAC in advance didn’t hurt too much. I went to the gardens first, as instructed by online advice, but since I arrived with a busload of people, it was already getting crowded. Still, the gardens were lovely, and kept nearly identical to how Monet had them when he lived there (and painted them).

(Many of his paintings from Giverny can be seen here: http://www.art.com/gallery/id--a43/claude-monet-posters.htm Yes, it's a poster site, but it's one of the larger groupings of his art I could find. The Giverny stuff is all mixed in, but it's mostly obvious which is which.)

Since photography is a hobby of mine, and I especially love to photograph flowers, I took a LOT of pictures here. I won’t post them all, but you can find the others on my Flickr page. I’ll put that link when I’m done with these blogs. Here are a few of my favorites:

The Japanese bridge in many of his paintings. I loves the pretty purple wisteria hanging over it. I'm a sucker for anything purple.

Such a pretty, scenic place

There they are, the famous water lilies. Minus the actual lilies. Must have been the wrong time of year for those.

Everything was so vibrant and colorful. It was beautiful.

The house itself

It only took an hour or so to wander the gardens and tour the house. Photos of the interior weren’t allowed, though that didn’t stop people from trying. One woman near me was very boldly aiming her camera phone everywhere and shooting (after checking to see that no employees were around), until she was caught in the last room and reprimanded. I can’t deny I wasn’t a little pleased at that. People like her, who think the rules don’t apply to them, drive me nuts.

Once I had seen everything and circled the garden a couple of times, it was time to leave. It wasn’t even noon yet, so I decided since I had lots of time, I might as well make the trip back to Vernon on foot. The day had turned gorgeous: cool but sunny and very comfortable. I knew people walked it all the time, so I set off for a leisurely stroll to soak in the countryside. It was about 4km, about 2.5 miles, but that didn’t sound too bad.

It was a looooong walk. At one point, when I thought I must be almost there, I passed a sign saying 2.3km left. Not even halfway! Good thing it was such a nice day, and I had lots of time before the next train, because I needed to stop and sit on the benches along the way more than once. My poor feet. But if I hadn’t walked it, I wouldn’t have seen the cute little church where Monet and his family are buried, or any of the other picturesque views along the way.

Such a pretty little country town, and so peaceful

Horse! I love horses, so I was really excited to come across this cutie. He came right up to say hi and then walked alongside me for a bit.

I finally made it back to Vernon, and was able to make a quick detour to see something I'd found online (which is a big reason I decided to walk back): A castle! I have a thing for old castles, and this one is from the 12th century. One of the towers was destroyed by a bomb in WWII, but was recently rebuilt (the whiter one in the front). It sits along the bank of the Seine River, near an old mill, and the whole area is so pretty. I sat down on a picnic bench in front of the castle and soaked it all in for a while before moving on. One thing I learned on my previous trip to Paris: I really love little French country towns. They're just so quaint and peaceful.

Tourelles Castle.

The Old Mill. It used to sit at the end of an ancient bridge (about as old as the castle), but all that's left of that are a few stone pilings.

At this point, I crossed the Seine back into Vernon and set out to find the train station so I could finally have lunch (it was well after 1:00 by then). The signs up until that point had been very clear, so I wasn't worried about finding it, but I must have missed one because once I was across the river, there were no more signs to the station, and I got horribly lost. I don't know how many streets I wandered (at least they were pretty?) before finally spotting a sign to the "gare" (French for train station). I still had some time before the next train, but not as much as I planned, so I ate at the cafe across the street. Another croque monsieur, which was delicious. They always are.

I was back in Paris by about 4pm, and headed to the apartment for the night, needing to put up my sore feet. This was becoming a theme. If I ever go back, I’m going to have to make an effort not to walk so much. I never once got out after dark to see the city lit up. Though part of that was due to the city not even getting dark until after 10pm.

I really wanted to get the rest of my trip into one post, but I should probably stop here and save the last two days. There wasn’t as much on those days, so I should be able to wrap it all up in one last blog. It may take me a few days because I have work on my day job’s website to do tomorrow, but I will get it up by the end of the week, promise!

Paris Days Two & Three

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Fri, 25 May 2012 20:13:00 +0000

Thank goodness it’s a holiday weekend. I’m still trying to kick this cough and get my sleep patterns back to normal. Maybe if I sleep lots this weekend, I’ll get my internal clock reset.

All right, let’s see if I can get more than one day into this post. My second full day in Paris also happened to be my birthday, one of the reasons I decided to take the trip when I did. All in all, it was a pretty great day. A little colder than the previous day, but bright and sunny. Perfect weather for exploring the city further, which was what I did.

I started out by going to the Ile de la Cité to see the Saint-Chappelle church. On previous trips, I’d always missed fitting it into the itinerary, so I wanted to be sure to get it this time. Also, they say to fully appreciate the stained glass windows, it’s best to visit on a sunny day. Well, it doesn’t get much sunnier than that day, so I set off on my way.

Along the way, I got this nice, sunny shot of the Concergerie, the prison where Marie Antoinette was held before being guillotined. I visited it last time, so didn't go in on this trip.

Since I didn’t buy a Museum Pass (which gets you in free and lets you jump ticket lines), I had to stand in line to get in, but it wasn’t too bad. I waited about 20 minutes, bought my ticket, and was in. And… was kind of disappointed. The area was dark and low-ceilinged (for a Paris church) and the windows were pretty, but nothing spectacular. I wandered around, took some photos (none that came out well enough to post), didn’t see that there was anything else around, and headed back out. Something didn’t feel right about it, but I had a lot of things I wanted to do, and there didn’t seem to be much reason to linger when I’d seen everything there. Well, it turned out I hadn’t seen everything. I was in the lower chapel, and the main part of the church, the part that makes it such a major monument, was the upper chapel. Apparently, there was a narrow, winding staircase off to one side of the lower room, something I hadn’t noticed in the dark. If I had gone up, I would have seen this:

Photo from Wikipedia Commons

Yeah. I feel pretty stupid. I was going to try to go back, but the cheap side of me didn’t want to spend another €8.50, and when I did the math, buying a Museum Pass wasn’t going to save me any money, so in the end, I didn’t return. It’ll have to be on the list next time I go, because while I’m not much of a religious person, I love beautiful old churches. This one looks pretty dazzling, too, so I’m bummed I was right there and missed out. They need bigger signs! This was one time I would have benefitted from not going alone: a traveling companion surely would have said “Hey, we need to look around more. There must be something else here!”

I was going to do a walk all around the island, to see the parts I’ve always missed in the past, but my feet were already starting to hurt, so instead I headed for Notre Dame. The last time I was there, it was a rainy day and there was a big, ugly tent out in front for some kind of festival, so my photos weren’t as good as I’d like. I wanted to get better ones, and it was the perfect day for it. So I did. (I posted one already in the previous post.)

I was going to go inside, since last time we went on a Sunday during a church service and it was really packed. But this time, even though it was a Saturday, the lines were pretty crazy. In the end, I figured I’ve already been in there twice, so no reason to kill my feet by standing in line. Maybe later in the trip I’d find myself back there and be able to get in quicker (I didn’t). I had more to see, so I moved on. At the back of the island, behind Notre Dame, there’s a memorial I never knew existed: La Mémorial des Martyrs de La Déportation. It’s a small memorial, built in a former morgue (I didn’t know that until I came home and looked it up), to honor the Jewish citizens who were rounded up and deported to Nazi concentration camps in WWII. Anyone who has read the fabulous Sarah’s Key will be familiar with this. And if you haven’t read it, do. It’s a great book. Anyway, the memorial is a small room with a couple of alcoves and this one long hall (behind bars, so you can’t get closer). According to Wikipedia, those are 200,000 backlit crystals, symbolizing each of the deportees who died in the camps. There’s also supposed to be an eternal flame there, but I don’t remember seeing one (unless it’s at the end of that hall?).

There wasn’t anything else to see or do on the island, since it was too cold to get the famous ice cream I always mean to check out there. I probably should have gotten it anyway, but once again, I thought maybe I’d be back before the end of the week. No such luck. So I crossed to the other bank of the Seine and found a metro that would take me to the Eiffel Tower, my next stop. The one thing I wanted to do on my birthday was have lunch on the grass in front of the tower. I misread my map and got off at the wrong stop, so I ended up walking much further than intended (my poor feet), but eventually got there. And I came upon a great bakery along the way that not only made fantastic sandwiches (the best I had that week), but had an adorable, fuzzy cat lounging in their window to help ease my homesickness for my own kitties.

View of the tower from where I had my lunch.

My next stop was Les Invalides, which houses a massive Army museum and a church with Napoleon’s tomb. It’s one of the places I’d never been, so it was at the top of my “must see” list. Since it’s not too far from the Eiffel Tower, I walked there. As it turns out, the metro stop I used previously was closer to it than the tower, so I would have been better off seeing Invalides first, but my empty stomach was leading me at that time, and it was Eiffel Tower or bust. The church at Les Invalides was beautiful, and for a little man, Napoleon’s tomb was pretty massive.

Despite my aching feet, I made myself see as much of the attached museums as possible, but to be honest, they didn’t really excite me too much. It was a lot of rooms (and I mean a LOT) of armor, weapons and other military clothing. Room after room after room of the same stuff. If you were into military history, you’d love it. I know my grandfather would have probably camped out in there for weeks if he’d been allowed, but for me, it didn’t do much. And my feet were really hurting, so I probably should have skipped it. That’s my cheap side again: I paid €9 to get in, so I was going to get my money’s worth!

I headed “home” a little earlier that day to rest my feet, and despite every intention of going somewhere special for a birthday dinner, I ended up grabbing a crepe and eating in in the Tuileries garden by the Louvre (I went back there with the intention of seeing a museum before calling it a night, but I missed the metro stop I was aiming for and ended up walking from Les Invalides back to the Place de la Concorde, and by the time I got there, I was too tired and sore to walk any more. So, on my birthday, in Paris, I called it a night at about 5pm. Pathetic, I know.

The next day was light on sight-seeing. At this point, I was planning to get the Museum Pass later in the trip, so I was saving all of the museums and monuments that were on it for later. Also, it was a pretty cold day. Sunny again, but cold. When I got up, i t was 46 degrees! My first order of business was to go to the train station and buy my train ticket for my excursion the following day to Giverny (Monet’s house and gardens). I’d read it’s better to buy them ahead of time so you don’t get stuck in a long line the day of and miss the train. Good advice, and it had the added advantage of letting me time how long it would take me to get there the next morning.

Whoever says the French are rude hasn’t ever been to Paris, as far as I’m concerned. On two occasions that day, a Parisian saved my butt. First, after buying my train tickets, I headed out of the ticket office to a bench to sit down and organize some things. While I sat there, this man came running out after me, holding out my return tickets, which I’d either dropped or left before the ticket agent could give it to me. One crisis averted. Next, once I had all of my things back in order and was ready to head out, I stood up and immediately the man sitting on the next bench over called out “Madame!” I turned, and he pointed to the ground… where my wallet lay. I’d dropped it and would have walked off without realizing it if it weren’t for him. I’d have been in BIG trouble, because all of my cash, credit cards and driver’s license were in there! The only thing not there was my passport. I had a moment of “what if” panic, thanked him profusely, then stuffed it back in my bag and was on my way. My next stop was supposed to be the FNAC nearby, where I could pre-buy my admission ticket to Giverny, but it was Sunday, and most stores in Paris are closed on Sundays. Drat.

When researching my trip, I kept reading how you had to see a street market at least once, and get the fixings for lunch, then go to a park and eat. Well, one of the major markets, at Rue Mouffetard, was open on Sundays, so I metro-ed over to St. Germain to check it out. It was busy, but I think I was expecting something bigger. Still, I got a sandwich and a basket of (over-priced, but very sweet) strawberries, then walked over to the Jardin des Plantes to eat.

Part of the street market. The cat was so cute. :)

The yummy, but expensive, strawberries

Near my lunch bench in the Jardin des Plantes

Next stop: Montmartre. I wanted to check out the cemetery there, and stop by Sacre Coeur for some sunny-day photos (again, it was gloomy there on past trips). And since it was Mother’s Day, I couldn’t resist e-mailing my mom a picture of the sex shops I was walking past. Because every mother wants to know her daughter’s hanging out in the red light district on Mother’s Day, right? I also e-mailed her a photo of a flower shop, so hopefully that made up for it. Anyway, the only reason to be in the red light district, at least for me, is to see the Moulin Rouge:

I think this is the first time I've seen it during the day.

The cemetery wasn't too far from there, and I spent a good hour or so wandering around. I love cemeteries, and the older the better. There's something about this style of cemetery, with the above-ground crypts, that I especially love. They're so charming and picturesque. Am I weird for thinking that?

I spent more time there than planned because I had a hard time finding some of the famous graves. This was my own fault: I read a tip the night before to be sure to pick up a map at the entrance. But when I walked in, there were no maps I could see other than the giant sign posted (which wasn't portable). Turns out, on my way out, I spotted a little office where a guy was handing out paper maps. D'oh! But there was another big map-sign in the middle of the cemetery, so I was able to use that and my own Paris map book, which had a small map of the grave locations, and eventually found the two famous graves I was looking for: Edward Degas and Alexandre Dumas. After that, I headed for my last major stop, Sacre Coeur.

Sacre Coeur is my favorite of the Paris churches. It's beautiful, for one thing, and so different than the rest thanks to its gleaming white facade. And it stands up on this hill overlooking the entire city that makes you feel like you're on top of the world. It's also very crowded. Knowing to avoid the main stairs (where the crowds and hair-braiding gypsies hang out), I came to it from the side. This had the added advantage of less up-hill walking, which my feet appreciated. I circled the church, took lots of pictures, considered going in, saw the line, changed my mind, then headed down the steps towards the metro that would take me back to my apartment. Along the way, I killed some time in the multitude of souvenir shops lining the Rue des Abbesses, the main road out of Montmartre (and the location of the metro stop). Every store sells the same stuff, and most of it's tacky tourist junk, but it's still interesting to nose around. I hadn't gotten any souvenirs myself yet, but didn't have much luck there. Nor would I have much luck for the rest of the trip, sadly. It's amazing: Paris is probably one of the shopping capitals of the world, I couldn't find anything to buy! I blame my budget for that one.

That's it for now. Later in the weekend I'll try to do the rest. Au revoir!

Paris in the Springtime

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Wed, 23 May 2012 21:03:00 +0000

Yes, I’m still alive. I apologize for going so long without updating the blog, but I have a good excuse: I was on vacation. In Paris! (Okay, I wasn’t on vacation this whole time, but between decompressing from the craziness of the TItanic centenary and preparing for the trip, then recovering once I was back home, there hasn’t been much time for blogging.)

I’ve been home almost a week now, and finally have some time to get my photos sorted out and my thoughts written down. It took a little longer thanks to the nasty cold I brought home with me, but I’m starting to feel normal again, finally.

Because I can be long-winded, and tend to take a lot of photographs, I’m going to split this travel blog up over a few days. Today’s post will be the first couple of days of the trip, which were also the days I did the most, so it will probably be the longest. I will aim for brevity, but make no promises. “Short” has never been my strong suit in writing.

We’ll start with a random pretty picture of Notre Dame, because Blogger makes the first photo the post’s cover shot, and otherwise my first photo would be a set of keys to the Bastille. Interesting, but not as pretty.

A little background on how this trip came about. I had the hankering to go somewhere this summer, but couldn’t find anyone able to go with me. So rather than stay home I decided I’m a big girl: I can go on vacation by myself. People do it all the time, so why shouldn’t I? Since this would be my first solo vacation, I figured my best bet would be to start with something familiar. That way, if the experience was overwhelming, I’d at least be somewhere I knew, so I wouldn’t feel too lost. Enter Paris. I’ve been there twice before, and am completely in love with it. Going back was a no-brainer. I know my way around, there are still parts of the city I had yet to see, and the more I thought about returning, the more excited I got. I could rent a cute little studio apartment for myself and feel like a Parisian for a week. It would be great!

And it was great. I found that I really enjoyed vacationing by myself. I Skyped home every night to talk to my family, so I never got lonely, and during the days I had the whole city in front of me to do with as I pleased. I could rush through places that didn’t interest me and could linger at others if the mood struck (or if I was getting camera-happy and taking a bazillion pictures), without it bothering anyone. Don’t get me wrong: I still enjoy traveling with other people. It’s nice to have someone else to talk to and share the experience with. But now I know that if I find myself companion-less again, I can travel alone and still enjoy it.

I took an evening flight from Tampa that arrived in Paris around 2:00pm, thinking it would help with jet lag to get in later in the day. I don’t think it did, and by not arriving in the morning like most people do, I ended up losing that whole day for sightseeing. In the future, I think I will go back to arriving in the morning, to maximize my time. As it was, by the time I got to the apartment I’d rented, it was after 4pm. There was some miscommunication between me and the landlord, so it took some extra time to get me and the guy meeting me in the same place, but eventually he found me and we got into the apartment. It was as cute as advertised, and I was excited to get settled in, but it would be another hour before that could happen due to some trouble we had with the TV and Internet. But he was very kind and determined to get everything working, for which I was very grateful, and by 6:00, he was gone and I was finally on my own. While I never had much use for the TV (all the channels were in French), the wifi was essential, so I’m glad he got it working. But at that point, all I had time for was a quick dinner (a crepe, something I’d been craving ever since my last Paris vacation) and some unpacking and relaxing from the long flight.

After a long night of not much sleeping thanks to a combination of jet lag and very stompy upstairs neighbors, my first full day dawned grey and rainy, but in the upper 60s, so not too cold. Given the weather, I started with a museum, the Museé Carnavalet, a free museum about the history of the city. It’s in a big old hotel (the Hotel Carnavalet) in the Marais district of Paris and covers the long history of Paris, from a prehistoric dugout canoe from 4600 BC to the present day. It’s a fascinating museum, one I might have enjoyed even more if I was fluent in French: all of the signs and descriptions were in French only, and while I do understand some of the language, a lot of it was lost on me. I could have gotten an audio guide that would have helped, but by the time I realized it would be useful, I was too far into the maze of rooms to go back.

A lesson to anyone going to Paris that doesn’t speak French: always get the audio guide in museums! Most of them don’t have English descriptions posted.

My favorite part of the museum had to be the section devoted to the French Revolution. That era of French history has always fascinated me, and I wasn’t disappointed here. One of my favorite displays was the room about the Bastille, which included these keys from the prison:

See, not as pretty for a cover image

Once I was finished with the museum, I headed for the Place des Vosges, the oldest “planned square” in Paris (according to Wikipedia). It has a beautiful old Paris look to it, surrounded on all sides by what I consider typical French buildings. It also has the house where Victor Hugo once stayed (back when it was a hotel, I believe), which is another free museum I wanted to check out. It was much smaller, and to be honest, not as interesting to me, but that’s mostly because I haven’t read much Hugo and therefore wasn’t as interested in him. But the square was beautiful and peaceful and it was nice to sit and rest for a little while before moving on with my day.

Place des Vosges

Since I was already halfway there, my next stop was the Place de la Bastille, the site of the Bastille prison. There was a café there I wanted to check out after seeing glowing reviews about the croque monsieurs (ham sandwiches with melted cheese on top. Yummy!), and it was nearing lunch time. It was still gloomy out, but that’s Paris for you sometimes. The sandwich was fantastic, and it was nice to spend a little time sitting at a café and writing in my journal. One of the great things about Paris is that they don’t mind if you linger over a meal, so there’s never any pressure to hurry up and clear the table for the next diner. The only downside to the outdoor cafes? Smoking is banned indoors now, so that’s where all the smokers go. I probably sucked down more secondhand smoke in that one week than I have in the last ten years. All part of the Paris experience, I suppose.

The July Column (Colonne de Juillet) in the Place de la Bastille (the glass building on the right is the new opera house, the Opéra Bastille)

After lunch, I was off and walking again. (This would come back to bite me in the ass – or rather, the feet – later.) It was so nice out (still gloomy, but no longer raining and a very comfortable temperature), I wanted to explore some more. I headed for the Hotel de Ville next, walking along the Seine for maximum scenery. You can’t actually go inside, as it’s now a government building, but I love the Robert Doisneau photo, Kiss by the Hotel de Ville, and have always wanted to see the place for myself. Well, here it is:

The Hotel de Ville, minus the kissing people and from the other angle

More walking along the river was next, with no specific destination in mind. It was a lovely, if grey, day, and I was enjoying my wander. At this point, my feet weren’t hurting and I was marveling at how wonderful my Dr. Scholl’s shoes were. Not a blister in sight yet and I felt like I could walk for days. So off I went, enjoying the scenic views of the river despite the overcast skies. I had my first sighting of the Eiffel Tower (for this visit)…

...and a lovely view of the Ile de la Cité, the larger of the two islands in the middle of the river, where Notre Dame is located.I’ve always meant to check out the park at the point of the island, but never made it there. Something for the next trip!

It wasn't long before I was nearing the Louvre, somewhere I hadn't planned to go on this trip, as I've already been there twice. But it was there, and it didn't cost anything to see from the outside, so I figured why not? That little detour turned out to be one of the highlights of the day, so I’m glad I made it. The museum building is huge and beautiful, and I'm always happy to spend some time photographing it from every conceivable angle. Once I was done wandering around and aiming my camera everywhere, I headed for the park in front of it, the Jardin des Tuileries, to sit for a while and take in my surroundings. Along the way, I stopped to get a pastry and a water, and had myself an impromptu snack. And made some new friends.

One wing of the massive Louvre building, as seen from the Jardin des Tuileries

My new friends, who appeared about two milliseconds after the first crinkle of my pastry bag. The male had no fear whatsoever of people, so clearly this wasn't his first encounter with a snacking human. They were both cute, though, quacking and sidling up to me. I'm a sucker for animals, so I contributed to their delinquency by dropping a few scraps of croissant.

The other end of the park is the Place de la Concorde, the site of the guillotine during the French Revolution. Since I was practically there already, I headed that way, got some photos, wandered around a little, then set off for my last quest of the day: shopping. I wanted to get myself a scarf or two to wear during my stay, in the hopes that it would help me blend in more and look less like a tourist. But my choice in shopping locales that day left some to be desired: I went first to the two big department stores, Au Printemps and Galleries Lafayette. Designer department stores, with prices to match. Not even close to my budget. After much walking around (and now, aching feet), I found a little shop having a sale and picked up two for 5€ each. They were pretty and kept my neck warm all week, but I live in Florida, so I have no clue when I’ll ever wear them again. Very sad: I really loved the purple one.

The Place de la Concorde, shot on a later, sunnier day. The obelisk originally stood in front of Luxor Temple in Egypt.

This is Luxor Temple, taken on a previous vacation. So now I've seen the whole set, thousands of miles apart!

I’m a little ashamed to say my first full day in Paris ended with dinner at, of all places, McDonald’s. But in my defense, I’d been walking ALL day and my feet were aching (complete with blister). All I wanted to do was go “home” and rest, so I grabbed a burger and fries before jumping back on the Métro to return to my apartment. Sadly, this would become a theme at dinner time. A full week in the city and I never once sat down in a restaurant for a proper dinner. I was always too tired, so dinner would become a crepe or a baguette or, yet again, McDonald’s. I guess that’s one advantage to traveling with other people: they force me to eat a proper dinner. Left to my own devices, even at home, I don’t eat much.

Well, that's day one of my trip. My intention to combine a few days into one post seems to have failed. Rather than let this get way too long, I'll stop here and pick up where I left off tomorrow.

Ruby's Birthday Book Giveaway - Let's try this again

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 15:16:00 +0000

Confession time: I feel like an idiot. I'm new to this whole author thing, and even newer to the various methods of promotion. I signed up back in March to be a part of the Ruby's Reads Giveaway Hop for her birthday this month. I was excited to be doing my first giveaway hop, and it was even better because it happened during the Titanic anniversary!

Here's where I'm the idiot: having never done one of these before, I misunderstood how they worked. I thought that my giveaway would be hosted on Ruby's blog at some point during the hop, and was waiting patiently for instructions on how this would happen. Not wanting to be a nag or a pest, I didn't bug her about it once the hop started, thinking I should be patient and wait for my turn. What I didn't realize was that the giveaway for Destined was supposed to be hosted on MY blog, and was supposed to be there for the duration of her hop. Color me incredibly embarrassed.

So, now that I finally understand how this works, one day before the hop ends, I'm feeling pretty stupid. I'm putting up the entry now for Destined, and will extend the deadline so that it has the full 12 days everyone else's giveaway had. Please forgive me in my error. Like I said, I'm new at this. :)

Rules of the giveaway are pretty simple. If you live in the US or Canada, you will get a paperback copy of Destined. If you live in any other country, I will substitute an ebook copy, format of your choosing. Good luck, and many, many apologies again for my error!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Ruby's Birthday Book Giveaway Hop

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 05:00:00 +0000

4/16:Bumping this up now that the Centenary post-a-palooza is over. :)

This blog is part of the Ruby's Reads Birthday Giveaway Hop! It runs April 12 - 24, and I believe there will be a giveaway copy of DESTINED in there at some point. For now, you can enter her April Releases contest below. As I get more info about my part of the hop, I will edit this post and bump it up.

Enter the contest

Here's the list of blogs in the hop:

Titanic Centenary, Day 6: April 15, 1912

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 16:41:00 +0000

April 15, 1912

Another busy day, so let's get right to it, shall we? Apologies in advance for the length.

Twenty minutes after striking an iceberg, Captain Smith had been made aware of the ship's fate, and it wasn't a good one: Thomas Andrews estimated she had only an hour and a half or so left to live. Smith headed for the wireless room and told Phillips to start sending out their position with CQD (the international distress signal, which had recently been replaced by SOS, but most operators hadn't adopted the new code yet). Around 12:05, the first distress call was sent. At this point, the severity of the situation wasn't as clear, and Phillips and Bride made jokes as they sent their messages. (Photo is one of the icebergs seen the next morning that is a possible candidate for the one Titanic struck.)

Smith's next order was to begin readying the lifeboats. Below decks, passengers were milling about more, trying to figure out why the ship had stopped. Most of the crew still hadn't heard any news from above, so many of them reassured their charges that everything would be fine. Some believed them and returned to their cabins, while others were more cautious and went out on deck to see for themselves. Many returned to their rooms to get dressed first, or at least covered their pajamas with coats and swapped their slippers for shoes.

About twenty minutes later, the captain finally gave the order to start mustering passengers up on deck in their lifebelts to load the boats. Women and children first was the rule of the sea at the time, and as the night progressed, some crew would enforce this more strictly than others.

About this time, 58 miles away, the Carpathia's lone wireless operator, Harold Cottam, was getting ready to shut down for the night. He would have already done so, but was waiting for confirmation on a message he had sent out. While he waited, he heard some messages being transmitted for Titanic and started to jot them down. He then switched to Titanic's frequency to pass them along. The following is the conversation that transpired.

Carpathia: I say, old man, do you know there is a batch of messages coming through for you from MCC? [MCC = Cape Cod]
Titanic, breaking into Carpathia's message: Come at once. We have struck a berg. It's a CQD, OM. Position 41° 46' N 50° 14' W
Carpathia: Shall I tell my captain?
Titanic: Yes, come quick.

Cottom ran to the bridge to inform the watch officer, H.V. Dean. Together, they went below to the cabin of their captain, Arthur Rostrom, who had just turned in for the night. Despite his initial irritation at the disturbance, he quickly realized the gravity of the situation and began dressing. He checked Titanic's coordinates in the chart room and ordered the ship to change course and had more stokers brought on duty so they could steam for the foundering ship at top speed (which for them was usually 14.5 knots, although they ended up reaching 17.5 knots that night). He ordered all unnecessary equipment shut down (including the ship's heaters) so that all the steam could be directed to the engines, and put four extra lookouts on duty to make sure they didn't barrel into any ice themselves along the way. With this added speed, the original estimated arrival time of 4:45am was beaten by about an hour. Unfortunately, they weren't fast enough. By the time they arrived at Titanic's location, there was nothing there but flat, calm sea.

Even closer to the Titanic, the Californian was stopped for the night, surrounded by ice. She had already tried to make contact with Titanic, but was rebuffed by a frazzled Phillips and told to keep out. By the time Titanic started sending out CQD calls, their wireless officer, Cyril Evans, had gone to bed. But other officers were up and about, and around the time Captain Rostrom was turning the Carpathia towards rescue, a fireman on Californian was having trouble sleeping. Earlier, he had spotted "a very large steamer, about ten miles away" as he came off of his 8-12 shift, and when he went back on deck to get some air, he noticed a white rocket from that direction. Thinking it was a shooting star, he waited, then saw another. In his words: "It was not my duty to notify the bridge or the lookouts. I turned in immediately after."

Other officers on the ship also noticed Titanic off in the distance, but none were ever too concerned. Many believed the ship they saw to be a smaller fishing boat, and while some did see the rockets she fired, they didn't believe them to be distress rockets. They tried to signal her with their Morse lamp a few times, but never saw any response. The Californian's captain, Stanley Lord, kept in contact with his watch officer, Herbert Stone, for a few hours, getting updates about the ship they'd been monitoring.

The Californian wasn't the only ship nearby who didn't come to the Titanic's aid. A smaller ship, the Samson, was close enough to see the ship as rockets were fired, but they were illegally hunting seals, and misinterpreted the rocket for a government signal. Afraid they were caught, they turned off their lights and sailed away. Many years later, the ship's captain would confess on his deathbed what he had done, saying if they had stayed to help, they might have been able to save 500 to 1000 people. Many survivors would tell of a "mystery ship" they had noticed only a few miles away and tried to signal as they were sinking, only to watch it disappear. Many believe this to be the Samson.

Back on the Titanic, news was finally spreading about the danger. Stewards were knocking on doors, waking passengers and ordering them on deck with their lifebelts. Still, most did not believe anything serious was happening. Their faith in the ship was unwavering. The officers, however, knew better. In his book, Titanic and Other Ships, Second Officer Lightoller, recounted the following:

Having got the boats swung out, I made for the Captain and happened to meet him near by on the boat deck. Drawing him into a corner, and cupping both my hands over my mouth and his ear, I yelled at the top of my voice, "Hadn't we better get the women and children into the boats, sir?" He heard me, and nodded reply. One of my reasons for suggesting getting the boats afloat was, that I could see a steamer's steaming lights a couple of miles away on our port bow. If I could get the women and children into the boats, they would be perfectly safe in that smooth sea until the other ship picked them up; if the necessity arose. My idea was that I would lower the boats with a few people in each, and when safely in the water fill them up from the gangway doors on the lower decks, and transfer them to the other ship.

I've always found this interesting, because not only does it explain (a little) why so many boats weren't filled completely, but also shines a light on what the captain's state of mind may have been. If you believe Lightoller's account, he appears almost stunned into inaction, needing a nudge from the other officers to make the necessary decisions to evacuate the ship.

Steam was now escaping from the funnels, the noise of which was nearly deafening. Passengers huddled indoors where it was warmer and quieter, still believing that the danger wasn't serious. The steam lasted for about 10 minutes, then silence returned. At this point, the ship's orchestra set up in the first class entrance and played to entertain the passengers that waited there. According to Lawrence Beesley, they moved outside to play on deck around 12:40, and kept it up until well past 2am.

Around 12:45, quartermaster Rowe began firing distress rockets. He would fire them at five-minute intervals for about 40 minutes. Meanwhile, the lifeboats were finally ready to be lowered. On the starboard side, First Officer Murdoch, Third Officer Pitman and Fifth Officer Lowe were in charge. Over on the port side, Lightoller was overseeing the boats with the help of Chief Officer Wilde and Captain Smith. Lightoller started by lowering lifeboat #4 down to A deck, where a group of wealthy first class passengers (including the Astors) were waiting. His intention was to load the boat from there, keeping them slightly warmer (the A deck promenade was enclosed) as they waited. But the screens could not be opened without a special tool, so he eventually had to give up and return to the boat deck, leaving #4 hanging there while he loaded the other boats.

At this time, over on the starboard side, lifeboat #7 would be the first to successfully launch. The bad news: it is woefully under-filled. A capacity of 65 people, it left Titanic with only 28 aboard (plus one Pomeranian, according to some accounts). One of those was actress and model Dorothy Gibson, who would later appear in the first movie ever filmed about the Titanic disaster, Saved From Titanic. The rest of the 28 were other first class passengers and three crew members put there to help navigate: two lookouts and a seaman. In the officers' defense, they tried to get more people on the boat, but they had all refused, still believing that there was no danger, and that they would be safer (and warmer) on the Titanic.

Also around this time, below decks, the bulkhead between boiler rooms 5 and 6 collapsed, filling boiler room 5 with water and drowning nearly every man inside. This is the wall where the fire in boiler room 6 was burning for so many weeks, and speculation is that the fire weakened it and caused this collapse.

(The exact order of the launching of lifeboats is different in every book I've read, as are the times, so I may not have this quite right.)

About 10 minutes later, the next two boats were lowered, #5 on the starboard side and #6 on the port side. Lifeboat #5, with a capacity of 65 people, was lowered with between 30 and 40 on board (exact numbers are also hard to pin down). J. Bruce Ismay stood by as it was being lowered, shouting "Lower away! Lower away!" and waving his arms frantically until he was told by Officer Lowe to get out of the way and let him work. As it was lowered, a man from first class jumped in, landing on one of the women and breaking two of her ribs. Over on the port side, lifeboat #6, also with a capacity of 65, was lowered with about 26 on board. (Some accounts show this lifeboat leaving later) Among those on board: Margaret "Molly" Brown, who was pitched in by a crewman as the boat was being lowered. Only two men were on board, Quartermaster Hitchens and lookout Frederick Fleet, so they called out for more aid. A passenger and yachtsman, Major Arthur Peuchen, volunteered and scaled down the ropes into the boat. Later on, tension would develop between Hitchens and the rest of the passengers. He resisted when the women offered to help row, and refused when they wanted to turn back and pick up more survivors.

Around 1:00am, Lightoller was supervising the loading of lifeboat #8. Ida Straus, wife of Isador Starus and owners of Macy's department store, was standing nearby, but when asked to get into the boat she refused, famously stating "I will not be separated from my husband. As we have lived, so will we die—together." They turned and went back into the ship, presumably to their cabin, and were never seen again. As with many of the other early boats, #8 was lowered with less than 30 people on board.

A few minutes later, lifeboat #1 was lowered from the starboard side, and would become one of the more talked-about boats later on. A smaller emergency boat, with a capacity for only 40, it was sent off with only 12 people on board: 5 first class passengers and 7 crew. Besides the absurdly low capacity, the fact that more crew than passengers were on board, and of that group, only two women, made for an even more dramatic story. While Lightoller was sticking to a "women and children only" credo over on the port side, his starboard counterpart, Murdoch, was being more lenient. He put some firemen on the boat with a couple of lookouts and a few first class men, instructing them to stay nearby to pick up other passengers later, when Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon showed up and asked if he and his wife (and her secretary) could board the boat. Murdoch happily allowed them. But once they were in the water, no one spoke up about returning, and they never did. During that time, one of the firemen commented that they had all lost their kits and would have to replace them. In an attempt to be helpful, Sir Cosmo offered to give them each five pounds to help them cover the cost, which he did later on. Unfortunately, when news of this kindness got out, he was accused of bribing them not to return to pick up more passengers, and was never able to live down the accusation.

At this point, Titanic was clearly in trouble. Her bow was pointed downward enough to be obvious she was sinking, and people were starting to panic. Lifeboat #9 was being loaded around 1:30am. Benjamin Guggenheim put his mistress on it, then stepped back with his valet and told a steward, "We've dressed in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen. There is grave doubt that the men will get off. I am willing to remain and play the man's game if there are not enough boats for more than the women and children. I won't die here like a beast. Tell my wife I played the game out straight and to the end. No women shall be left aboard this ship because Ben Guggenheim was a coward." Also on #9, second class ladies Kate Buss and Marion Wright, who were put on after an officer asked if any more women were nearby. Buss reportedly argued with the officer in charge of the boat after he refused to let their two male friend on with them.

According to third class steward, John Hart, the gates keeping third class passengers from the upper decks were opened around 1:15am, allowing them to come up and take their chances with the lifeboats. Many of them would not find their way above, due to the mass confusion and language barriers among the various nationalities in steerage.

Finally, those loading the boats wised up to the severity of the situation and began filling the boats more. Lifeboat #11 was lowered with over 50 people. There's a sad story connected with this one: a first class family, the Allisons, were preparing to leave the ship when their nurse took the baby, Trevor Allison, up on deck, determined to save him. She got on boat #11 and was saved, but there was a lot of confusion around her departure, and the rest of the Allison family was unaware she had gotten off the ship. They searched frantically for their son, but by the time they realized the nurse had taken him, the boats were all gone. None of the rest of the family survived, and their 2-years-old daughter, Helen, was the only child in first or second class to die.

The last two full-sized boats to leave the starboard side were #13 with about 60 on board, then #15. One of #13's occupants was Lawrence Beesley, who was instructed to jump on as it was being lowered once the officer in charge realized there were no more women around. This boat was nearly crushed as the next boat, #15 (loaded slightly over capacity), was lowered, due to escaping water pushing it underneath 15. Ropes were cut just in time and the boat was able to move away before anyone was injured.

Over on the port side, the difference in loading procedures was more apparent. While boats on the starboard side were leving filled with women, children and men, the port boats were still leaving half-full. Lightoller stuck firmly to women and children only, so when no more women were around, he would put a few crew members on the boat and send it on its way. #12 was lowered with only about 40 on board, then #14 with closer to 60. #14 was helmed by Fifth Officer Lowe, who would later corral it along with boat #4, #10 and #12, tie them together, then transfer passengers from one to the other to level them out. Once done with this, he and a few other officers took his boat, which was now emptied, back to the site of the sinking to look for survivors. They were the only ones who would do this, but they took too long to get out there and only managed to save 3 people, one of whom did not survive.

Next to load was #16, which included second class passenger Edwina Troutt and stewardess Violet Jessup. Jessup had already been through a rather major crash on Titanic's sister ship, Olympic, and would later be on her other sister ship, Brittanic, when it was sunk by a mine in the Aegean Sea. She was one of the only people who could say she survived all three disasters.

Another soon-to-be-notorious lifeboat, Collapsible C, was lowered from the starboard side with over 40 people on board, nearly all women. At one point while it was being loaded, a group of third class men supposedly tried to get on board, and one of the officers (some said Murdoch, others said Chief Purser McElroy) had to fire a couple of warning shots in the air to hold them back. These shots would be discussed at length over the next 100 years as debates raged over whether or not anyone was shot to death while loading the boats. As if that wasn't enough drama, as the boat was being lowered, J. Bruce Ismay, after spending the last hour assisting with the loading of the lifeboats, would climb in and save himself. Some called him a coward for this. Personally, I'm torn. On the one hand, yes, it looked bad for a man in his position to be saved in such a way, but on the other hand, the spot he took would have been empty had he not gotten in, so he didn't save himself at the expense of another.

Titanic was listing so far to port by this point that no more boats could be launched from the starboard side. The rest had to go from the port side, starting with emergency boat #2. As it was about to be loaded, it was discovered that a group of crew members had already gotten in. Angry, Lightoller brandished his pistol (he later claimed it was unloaded) at them and ordered them off. As with the rest of LIghtoller's boats, it was lowered about half full, with only women and a few male crew members. Among those crew was Fourth Officer Boxhall, who brought along a lantern and some green rockets. He would fire these off throughout the night, using them to signal the Carpathia when she arrived in the morning.

The last full-sized lifeboat to be loaded was #4, still hanging down by A deck where it was abandoned nearly an hour earlier. Someone had finally found the tool needed to open the screens, so the boat was loaded through the A deck windows with nearly all women, including Madeline Astor. Her husband, John Jacob Astor, asked if he could join her because she was pregnant, but Lightoller refused. Continuing with his determination to load only women and children, he nearly refused to let a 12-year-old boy on. When the boy's mother begged him, he grudgingly relented, saying "no more boys." One story claims that, upon hearing this, Mrs. Carter placed her hat on her own young son's head in order to be sure he'd be allowed on board. After Titanic sunk, the boat would take in swimmers from the water.

After this, it is said that John Jacob Astor went down to the kennels and released the dogs. It was now around 2am, and a group of first class passengers, uninterested in saving themselves, retired to the smoking room for a final game of cards, then left the room ten minutes later. A survivor also reported seeing Thomas Andrews in that room around that time, staring thoughtfully at a painting, his lifebelt laying forgotten on a table. I believe this is the account James Cameron used for his final shot of Andrews in the movie.

Around 2:05am, Captain Smith returned to the wireless room and told Phillips and Bride they were relieved from their duties, and to save themselves if they can. On his way out, it is said he told crew members it was now every man for himself, then reportedly disappeared into the bridge. Other survivors said they saw him swimming to one boat or another after the sinking, never trying to save himself, but there's no way to know which tale is true.

Also around 2:05, Collapsible D was filled not quite to capacity and lowered. Among its passengers were the two Navratil boys from second class, who had been traveling with their father under the name of Hoffman, as he had kidnapped them from their mother. They would be happily reunited with her later in New York, but their father went down with the ship. A few minutes later, the ship's orchestra began to play their final song. Debate rages still over its identity: some say it was "Nearer My God to Thee," while others insist it was "Autumn."

Only two collapsible boats were left: A and B, and both were still attached to the roof of the officers quarters. Men began trying to cut them down, but before they could, the ship took a slight dive, sending a wave over the bow and washing Collapsible B off the deck, upside down. Boat A was also washed off around that time, but it stayed upright. Not long after this, the wires holding the forward funnel snapped, sending it crashing into the water and killing whoever was swimming there (many believe one of those men was Astor, whose body was found crushed).

The angle of the sinking became greater, and everything inside the ship began to slide forward with a loud roar: furniture, dishes, even the gigantic boilers. Those still on the ship ran for the stern to cling to the rails, still desperate to stay on board. Down in the wireless room, Phillips sent his last message at 2:17am, but it was cut off when the ship finally lost power and began her final plunge.

Another interesting story is of Chief Baker Charles Joughin. Throughout the sinking, he calmly ran around the ship, gathering food and other provisions for the lifeboats, all the while tippling from a flask of Scotch. When he finished with that task, he then began tossing deck chairs and other unattached bits of wood overboard in the hopes of giving those in the water something to cling to. As the ship started her final dive, he was seen standing at the very stern, clinging to the flag pole (those familiar with the James Cameron movie will notice he included this). It is said the ship went under so smoothly that Joughin was able to step off of it into the water without ever getting his hair wet. He then swam to the overturned Collapsible B and tried to get on, but was refused. He clung to the side for a while, working his way around it, until eventually one of the cooks recognized him and held on to him so he wouldn't sink. Many believe he survived all that time in the water due to the amount of alcohol he had consumed, which may have helped warm him.

At 2:20am, Titanic sank beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean and would not be seen again for 73 years. Survivors in the lifeboats said that the sinking was followed by a terrible roar of voices as everyone in the water cried out to be saved. It was this sound that would haunt most of their dreams for years and years. In about twenty minutes, this sound would fade as they all died in the icy water. In most of the boats, someone would suggest they go back to pick up survivors, but the only one that actually did this was Officer Lowe in boat #14, after he tied up with the 3 other boats and moved his passengers off. A few other boats picked people up that happened to be near them, but in total, only 14 of the 1500 people in the water were taken into one of the lifeboats.

One of these saved is another interesting story, and another I suspect inspired James Cameron. It was told by Charlotte Collyer, who had volunteered to go back to the wreck site with Lowe in boat 14:

A little further on, we saw a floating door that must have been torn loose when the ship went down. Lying upon it, face downward, was a small Japanese [it was later determined he was actually one of 8 Chinese sailors who had signed on as firemen. Six of them survived.]. He had lashed himself with a rope to his frail raft, using the broken hinges to make the knots secure. As far as we could see, he was dead. The sea washed over him every time the door bobbed up and down, and he was frozen stiff. He did not answer when he was hailed, and the officer hesitated about trying to save him.

"What's the use?" said Mr Lowe. He's dead, likely, and if he isn't there's others better worth saving than a Jap!"

He had actually turned our boat around; but he changed his mind and went back. The Japanese was hauled on board, and one of the women rubbed his chest, while others chafed his hands and feet. In less time than it takes to tell, he opened his eyes. He spoke to us in his own tongue; then, seeing that we did not understand, he struggled to his feet, stretched his arms above his head, stamped his feet, and in five minutes or so had almost recovered his strength. One of the sailors near to him was so tired that he could hardly pull his oar. The Japanese bustled over, pushed him from his seat, took the oar and worked like a hero until we were finally picked up. I saw Mr Lowe watching him in open-mouthed surprise.

"By Jove!" muttered the officer. "I'm ashamed of what I said about the little blighter. I'd save the likes o' him six times over, if I got the chance."

All that was left now was to wait for rescue. Most of the officers were unaware of the Carpathia heading for them, so most of the lifeboats had no clue how long they would be adrift in the cold. With the exception of some bread brought up by Joughin and his bakers, many of the boats had no provisions.

At 3am, the Carpathia was nearing the Titanic's coordinates. Captain Rostrom ordered rockets to be shot off at 15 minute intervals so that they would know help was coming. Around 3:30, the first lifeboat spotted their rockets, and five minutes later, Carpathia had reached its destination. To Rostrom's confusion, the Titanic was nowhere to be seen. All that could be seen were small green lights every now and then down at the water line, which signaled the presence of small boats. He ordered the engines on standby, then at 4:00, ordered them stopped.

Ten minutes later, lifeboat #2 reached her side and officers began to bring the women up on board. Officer Boxhall, whose green rockets were probably the lights Rostrom saw, reported to the bridge and told Rostrom that Titanic had sunk at 2:20am.

Because it was so dark, the Carpathia stood still and let the lifeboats row to them. There was ice all around, and they were afraid that they might run into one of the small boats if they tried to move. (Pictured: Lifeboat #14 towing Collapsible D)

The story of Officer Lowe in boat #14 continues here. Around dawn, as he was sailing towards the rescue ship, he noticed Collapsible D having trouble. It was riding low, with no crew on board to row it, so he tied it to his boat and towed it. Shortly after that, he found Collapsible A, filled with water and on the brink of sinking. About half of its passengers had frozen to death overnight, so he transferred the survivors onto his boat, pulled the plug in boat A and let it sink. Not far away, the upside-down Collapsible B was having difficulties. It couldn't be rowed anywhere, for obvious reasons, and the men standing on her bottom were getting tired from shifting their weight all night in an attempt to keep from sinking. Lightoller was one of these men, and had taken leadership of the group. He began to blow his whistle for help, and was heard by the three boats Lowe had tied together earlier, #4, #10 and #12. Men in #4 and #12 heard the whistle, untied themselves from #10 and rowed over. The first person to board #12 was baker Joughin, who was still in the water. Everyone else was transferred off of B into the two boats, then they all headed for the Carpathia.

At 8:30am, the last lifeboat, #12, reached the Carpathia. Fifteen minutes later, Charles Lightoller climbed on board, the last person to be saved. Around this time, the Californian arrived on the scene, having finally gotten notice of Titanic's sinking a few hours earlier. Rostrom made another circle or two to search for survivors in the water, but saw nothing but some small debris, a few deck chairs and one body. He then left the Californian to continue searching and turned toward New York to deliver the survivors. They counted 705 brought on board, which meant over 1500 people had perished. Now all that was left was getting those survivors home, and starting the tedious process of notifying everyone of what had happened. The Carpathia's wireless operator was assisted by Titanic's surviving wireless man, Harold Bride, as they worked tirelessly to transmit the names of the survivors.

The Carpathia stopped once more along the way, around 4:00pm, to hold a memorial service for those lost, and to commit the four bodies they had on board (one taken from a lifeboat, the other 3 men who died after being rescued) to the sea.

Missed any stops on the Blog Tour? Here they are!

Bona Fide Reflections | Rainy Day Rmblings | We Fancy Books
Seeing Night Reviews | Literary Obsession

Titanic Centenary: April 14, 1912. Iceberg, right ahead!

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 18:46:00 +0000

April 14, 1912

Well, here it is, the big day. This post will be longer than the others, for obvious reasons It was a busy day!

Sunday morning was clear but cool. After breakfast, church services were held in each class, with the first class service presided over in their dining saloon (photo, left) by Captain Smith. Some books claim that this was a all-class service, allowing third class up into the grand first class areas for a short time, but I'm hesitant to believe it. Steerage would never have been allowed into the first class areas. A similar service was held in the second class dining room by the assistant purser, Reginald Barker, and a Catholic mass was held in the second class lounge by Father Thomas Byles. (He also held a mass in third class.)

Captain Smith was required to do a lifeboat drill that morning. Why on Sunday, rather than the first day of the voyage, I don't know. But for some reason, he skipped it. When lifeboats had to be loaded that night, many of the crew were unsure where to go or what to do. No one knew their stations and no one had been assigned to any certain boat (each boat should have had a crew member or two assigned to navigate in case of evacuation). If the drill had been held, it's possible the loading of boats would have been more orderly, and more people might have been saved. Because they had no drill to explain the boats, too many crew members were afraid to load them to capacity, worried that the weight of so many people would buckle the lifeboat davits.

Shortly before 2pm, an ice warning was delivered to Captain Smith while he was chatting with J. Bruce Ismay, director of the White Star Line. He gave it to Ismay, who kept it for most of the day and showed it to numerous passengers, rather than passing it on to the bridge. Smith asked for it to be returned just before dinner and at that point posted it on the map with the other ice warnings. Many other ice warnings this day would never make it to the chart room. Would it have made a difference if they had? I doubt we'll ever know for sure.

The temperature dropped throughout the day, going from somewhere in the 50s all the way down to 33 degrees by early evening. The cold kept passengers inside more than usual, leaving many of the public rooms crowded. Two more boilers were fired up and Titanic picked up some speed, at one point traveling at a little over 22 knots, the fastest she would go during her maiden voyage. Despite the rumors later, they were never trying to break speed records on this trip: Titanic wasn't built for speed. Even at her fastest, she stood no chance of surpassing the 26 knots other ships of the time could do. The most they could have been aiming for was to break whatever record her sister ship, Olympic, might have set on her own maiden voyage a year earlier.

After dinner, Rev. Carter organized a hymn sing in the second class dining room that was attended by close to 100 people. One hymn sung, by special request, was "For Those in Peril on the Sea." (The James Cameron film showed this being sung in first class during Captain Smith's church service. It may have been sung there as well.) Up in first class, a private party was being held in the a la carte restaurant in Captain Smith's honor, hosted by the Widener family. Rumors abounded after the disaster that the Titanic's maiden voyage was to be Smith's last (or nearly last), and that the party was in honor of his long career and impending retirement. Around 9:00, Smith left the restaurant to check in at the bridge. They knew they were entering an ice field, and he told Lightoller to keep a sharp eye out. Then, after instructing him to get him at any sign of trouble, he retired for the night. (Photo: First class a la carte restaurant, Olympic)

Another ice warning came in around 9:40pm, but was not delivered to the bridge. The ship had just come within range of Cape Race, the nearest wireless station, and Phillips was busy sending and receiving messages for the passengers. This was the first time they had been in direct communication with North America, and he had a lot of messages to send from passengers to their friends and family. He put the ice warning under a paperweight to be brought to the bridge later, but it never was.

At 10pm, First Officer Murdoch relieved Lightoller for the night shift. At this point the temperature had dropped again, to 31 degrees. There was concern that the ship's fresh water supply might freeze, and the nearly dead calm of the sea was a worry to the lookouts. A calm sea makes it harder to see ice, as there is less chance of spotting water breaking at the iceberg's base. In the crow's nest, the shift change meant lookouts Frederick Fleet and Reginald Lee were now on duty. They were in for a rough night: it was below freezing, there was no moon to light their way, and no fog or haze to help pick out objects in the sea ahead. These were just about the worst possible conditions when looking for ice. To make matters worse, they had no binoculars. The "glasses," as they were called, had been locked in a cabinet on board before sailing, and the man who had done so accidentally took the keys with him when departing the ship at Southampton.

In first class, the orchestra was entertaining passengers in the lounge, while the hymn sing in second class was finally starting to break up. Some passengers hung around to chat over biscuits and coffee, before eventually turning in for the night. Not too far away, the captain of the Californian, Stanley Lord, was about to turn in as well. But he was bothered by a light he had seen, thinking a ship might be nearby. His own ship was surrounded by ice and stopped for the night, so if there was another ship close by, he felt they should be warned. He went down to the wireless room and asked which ships were close. The operator, Cyril Evans, replied, "Just the Titanic," but Lord didn't believe the ship he saw was big enough. Still, he told Evans to contact Titanic anyway, and warn her of the ice. He did, but over on Titanic, Phillips was still busy with his backlogged messages, and due to the proximity of the two ships, the Californian's incoming message was very loud. Startled and annoyed, Phillips told him to shut up, that he was working Cape Race and Evans was jamming his signal.

Around 11:30, many passengers had turned in for the night, but some were still up. In first class, there was a large group of men playing cards in the smoking room, while others were in the lounge, reading or chatting. Most of the public rooms closed around 11pm, but the smoking rooms remained busy with men engrossed in card games. Outside, it was now 30 degrees, and the water was 28 degrees. Hardly anyone was outdoors unless they had to be.

Over on the Californian, Evans decided to turn in for the night. He was the ship's only wireless operator, and had been working for about 18 hours. He turned off the system and went to bed. He wasn't the only one: because it wasn't required to have someone monitoring the wireless 24 hours a day, many ships only had one operator, who would shut down for the night before sleeping.

11:35pm: Lookouts Fleet and Lee were probably about frozen at this point, and counting the minutes until the next watch would relieve them at midnight. There was a slight haze at that point, and through it, Fleet spotted something black in front of them. Realizing what it must be, he rang three loud bells, the signal for something straight ahead, then grabbed the phone connected to the starboard end of the bridge. Frantic, he didn't wait for Sixth Officer Moody, who picked up the other end, to say anything. The ensuing conversation, though short, is repeated just about verbatim in every book and movie about the disaster.

Fleet: "Are you there?"
Moody: "Yes. What do you see?"
Fleet: "Iceberg, right ahead!"
Moody: "Thank you."

The words "thank you" were barely out of Moody's mouth before he was turning to First Officer Murdoch and repeating Fleet's warning: "Iceberg, right ahead." Murdoch, who had just spotted the ice himself, jumped into action, signaling to the engine room to stop the engines and reverse them in an effort to slow down, then called to the quartermaster, Robert Hitchens, to turn the wheel "hard a-starboard." They were going to try to steer around the berg.

(A side note: some believe that if Murdoch hadn't ordered the ship to slow, and has instead continued on at the 22 1/2 knots they were making, they might have been able to turn her quicker and avoid the ice entirely. But like most speculations of this sort, no one will ever know for sure.)

Titanic was a huge ship with a relatively small rudder for her size, which meant she didn't turn quickly. She did eventually turn, but not soon enough. While they avoided a head-on collision, they didn't get out of the way in time, and the iceberg scraped along the starboard side of the ship. It was barely felt in most areas—little more than a faint vibration—but most passengers who were awake at the time reported feeling or hearing something. The men still playing cards in the second class smoking room claimed to have seen the iceberg itself pass the room's windows, but aside from some of the officers who had been watching the collision, the only other physical evidence in the passenger areas were the chunks of ice that had broken off of the berg and fallen onto the decks and into a few open portholes. Below decks, however, the damage was much more apparent. Water began to fill the forward holds and boiler room #6 immediately, and with great force.

Moments after the iceberg made contact, Murdoch ordered the wheel hard to port in an effort to turn the stern end of the ship away from the berg, but it was too late: the damage was already done. He rang the alarm for the watertight doors to be closed (in some accounts he closed the doors before the iceberg made contact) and ordered the time to be logged: 11:40pm. From the time Fleet spotted the berg to the time it hit? Only 37 seconds. If they had noticed it a few seconds sooner, or the ship was traveling a knot or two slower, it might have been avoided entirely.

In the first class dining room, a group of stewards had been gossiping amongst themselves and heard a "faint grinding noise" as the berg scraped by, and others later reported that they felt a slight bump or jolt, or heard a ripping or grinding sound, but nothing drastic enough to be concerned. For the most part no one but the bridge officers had a clue that anything was wrong. Even those awakened by the collision weren't immediately concerned. Most who looked out into the hallways to see what had happened ended up returning moments later, convinced it was nothing. A few even went back to sleep. When the ship stopped soon after, rumors began circulating that she had merely dropped a propeller, and that they would be moving again soon.

Captain Smith had felt the collision while resting in his cabin and rushed up onto the bridge to ask what they had struck. After hearing Murdoch's report, he ordered Sixth Officer Boxhall to find the carpenter and have him sound the ship. At this point, he knew they were in trouble, just not how badly. Boxhall took a quick tour of the bow of the ship and returned with news that he hadn't seen any damage, but that one of the mail clerks told him there was water in the mail rooms. Needing to see the damage for himself, Smith got Thomas Andrews, director Harlan & Wolff, the builder of the ship. Together, they began their tour.

What they found was not good news. Less than 20 minutes had passed since the collision, and already water was quickly filling six of the watertight compartments. The ship was built so that she would stay afloat if the four forward-most compartments filled, but not six. As the ship started going down at the head, water would spill over the top of the watertight bulkheads, filling those behind it like water in an ice tray. Titanic was doomed.

Today is the final stop of the Destined Blog Tour: Literary Obsession

For those of you who have been following along this week, thank you, and I hope you enjoyed the posts and reviews.

Titanic Centenary: April 13, 1912

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:34:00 +0000

April 13, 1912

April 13 started out with the wireless operators hard at work to fix the broken telegraph system. Because it was down, they missed some early ice warnings, and got even more backed up with passenger messages. At one point in the morning, Major Archibald Butt, a first class passenger and military aide to President Taft, stopped by to see the wireless in action, but was disappointed to find it was still being repaired. Phillips and Bride had it working again by that afternoon, and were back in business. The stack of waiting messages must have been daunting, because according to Bride, they were still trying to catch up at the time of the accident.

(A side note: while most accounts of the events that week say the wireless broke down late Friday night, and was fixed early Saturday morning, some push that a day later. In fact, an article written by Harold Bride himself shortly after the disaster claimed the wireless broke Saturday night and was only fixed hours before the iceberg was struck. So it's hard to say which is the case. If you’d like to read it, the New York Times has a PDF up of the article. It is also available as part of The Story of the Titanic as Told by its Survivors, which includes Lawrence Beesley’s book, Col. Archibald Gracie’s book and Commander Charles Lightoller’s account. A very interesting read, and one I used often in my research.)

There was one bit of good news that morning, however. While Captain Smith was on his daily rounds, he was informed by the Chief Engineer, Joseph Bell, that the fire in coal bunker #6 had finally been put out. It had been burning for about two weeks, since her sea trials, and had been a concern throughout the voyage. There had been some concern about it, and if it had still been burning when they docked in New York, the captain would likely have had to call the fire department to come put it out before making the return trip back to Southampton.

For everyone else on board, April 13 was a normal, perhaps even boring, Saturday at sea. Nowadays, cruises are packed from minute to minute with things to do, but in 1912, the only organized activities were three meals a day and a church service on Sunday morning. The rest of the time, passengers entertained themselves. Saturday was a sunny day, but still cool, so most people probably stayed indoors, reading or writing in the libraries. Here is a quote from second class passenger Lawrence Beesley, from his book, The Loss of the S.S. Titanic. (Photo is Titanic's second class library, though more likely a photo of Olympic.)

"There is very little to relate from the time of leaving Queenstown on Thursday to Sunday morning. The sea was calm, - so calm, indeed, that very few were absent from meals: the wind westerly and southwesterly, - "fresh" as the daily chart described it - but often rather cold, generally too cold to sit out on deck to read or write, so that many of us spent a good part of the time in the library, reading and writing. I wrote a large number of letters and posted them day by day in the box outside the library door: possibly they are there yet."

Since there isn't much more to say about April 13, I want to add another quote I found from Beesley, about the second class lift steward. I feature him (Reginald Pacey) in Destined, and from everything I have read, Beesley's account is the only one that ever mentions him. Something about Pacey has always tugged at me, and while writing the book I developed a strange attachment to him. Reading Beesley's account probably had a lot of do with that. Even he seemed to be somewhat enamored of the young man.

"I wonder where the lift-boy was that night. I would have been glad to find him in our boat, or on the Carpathia when we took count of the saved. He was quite young,- not more than sixteen, I think, - a bright-eyed, handsome boy, with a love for the sea and the games on deck and the view over the ocean - and he did not get any of them. One day, as he put me out of his lift and saw through the vestibule windows a game of deck quoits in progress, he said, in a wistful tone, "My! I wish I could go out there sometimes!" I wished he could, too, and made a jesting offer to take charge of his lift for an hour while he went out to watch the game; but he smilingly shook his head and dropped down in answer to an imperative ring from below. I think he was not on duty with his lift after the collision, but if he were, he would smile at his passengers all the time as he took them up to the boats waiting to leave the sinking ship."

Don't forget the Destined Blog Tour going on this week. Today's stop: Seeing Night Reviews

Titanic Centenary: April 12, 1912

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 19:11:00 +0000

April 12, 1912

The next two days on Titanic were relatively uneventful. The ship was at open sea, with nothing but water for miles in all directions. Passengers would spend their days wandering the decks when the weather was warm enough, chatting or reading in the lounges or libraries, playing cards, and for the first class, checking out the amenities available. There was the Turkish bath, swimming pool, squash court and gymnasium, all with special hours for men and women separately (no co-ed swimming, it would seem). The gym even had a special children-only opening each afternoon. Not all of these rooms were free, but the first class could afford an extra dollar or two for the added luxuries. The swimming pool was salt water, filled once Titanic was out to sea, and was heated. It was one of the first ships to have a swimming pool (or swimming bath) on board.
In the other classes, passengers had fewer options. Second class had a smoking room for the men and library for everyone. The third class merely had a general room for everyone and a smoking room with a bar for the men. And all classes had designated deck space where they could walk, get some fresh air, or lounge in deck chairs with their friends and family. On cooler days, first and second class had enclosed promenade spaces.
Many passengers looked forward each day to the posting of the previous day's run. Around noon, the mileage would be tacked up in the smoking rooms, and it's likely some of the men bet on the next day's numbers. From Thursday to Friday (April 11-12), she traveled 386 miles. (Thursday's travel was shorter due to the stop in Ireland.) Friday to Saturday: 519 miles. And Saturday to Sunday: 546 miles.
One thing of note did occur on the 12th, however, that would affect the rest of the ship's voyage. Around 11pm, the wireless broke down, and while the wireless operators, Jack Phillips and Harold Bride, were able to fix it early the following morning, the brief outage caused a pretty serious backlog of messages to be sent. Because they allowed passengers to send messages through the wireless (for a fee, of course), the operators were kept busy. Wireless was still a novelty, and those who could afford it couldn't seem to resist sending a message back home from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The next few days, Phillips and Bride would be working at a fever pitch to catch up on the messages waiting to be sent, and would not have time to get all the ice warnings to the bridge, often giving precedence to the passenger communications over the ice notices. They were employed by the Marconi company, not the White Star Line, so those passenger messages were a big part of their business. (Not to say they ignored ice warnings. Anything coded to be given to the captain was immediately sent up, but not all incoming messages about ice were coded as such, and therefore were not always considered urgent by the busy wireless operators.)
*A note about the photos. The image of the swimming pool is most likely the pool on Olympic, as there are no known photos of Titanic’s swimming bath (outside of one that doesn’t show much). Many areas of Olympics were nearly identical to Titanic, as they were sister ships and built from similar blueprints. The second photo was taken by Francis Browne, a first class passenger who was sailing to Ireland. He took many photos on board Titanic, and for some areas of the ship, his are the only photographs that exist today. The wireless room is one of those areas. So while it's not the best image (it's a double exposure), it's all we have. The wireless operator working in the photo is most likely Harold Bride. He would survive the sinking, while Jack Phillips would not. Despite serious frostbite on one foot and a sprain in the other, Bride worked hard with the Carpathia's wireless operator to get messages out from the survivors as they traveled to New York.

Don’t forget the Destined Blog Tour going on this week. Today's stop: We Fancy Books

Titanic Centenary: April 11, 1912

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:33:00 +0000

April 11, 1912

The morning of April 11 was clear but cool, keeping most passengers indoors as the Titanic neared her final stop in Queenstown, Ireland (known today as Cobh). She docked around 11:30am, dropping anchor just outside of Roche's Point, too big to berth at the dock itself. Passengers and mail had to be ferried back and forth on smaller tenders.

Not many passengers disembarked in Ireland, but one of these would later turn out to be a boon for Titanic historians. Francis Browne (later known as Father Browne) had been crossing the channel with the O'Dell family in first class. While he was only on the ship a short time, he brought his camera along and took many photographs of the ship's interiors, some of the only photos that would ever be taken in her short life. A full album of his photographs can be found here.

Another man who got off the ship at Queenstown wasn't supposed to: John Coffey, a Irish fireman who signed on in Southampton, deserted the ship in Queenstown by hiding under some bags of mail. It is thought that he used the ship's voyage as a way to get free passage home. More can be found about him in a previous blog post.

While Titanic is in port, newsmen and others are allowed on board to quickly tour her decks, take pictures and even sell wares to the first class passengers. But not for long, because about two hours after dropping anchor, she is ready to set off again, this time for New York. The photo to the right was taken by Father Browne as he left the ship, the last picture ever taken of Captain Smith, who can be seen peering down from the bridge (top of the image), with one of the lifeboats dangling ominously below.

No first class passengers boarded at Queenstown, and only a few joined the second class, one of which was Nora Keane, who would be placed in a cabin with Edwina Troutt and Susan Webber (both of which are mentioned in DESTINED). The majority of the people coming onto the ship here were third class: immigrants heading to America to start new lives in the New World. Jeremiah Burke, the boy whose "message in a bottle" was found near his hometown a year later (more on him here), was one of these immigrants.

Shortly after 1:30pm, Titanic raised anchor for the last time and headed out to sea. Out on the stern, in the third class promenade, Irishman Eugene Daly (more on his in John Coffey's blog post, above) sat down to play "Erin's Lament" on his pipes, a sad goodbye to the homeland he would not see again for many years.

Once she was underway, a full emergency dress rehearsal took place among the crew, complete with alarm bells and the closing of all the watertight doors. The lifeboat drill for the passengers was scheduled for Sunday morning, April 14. It would not take place, skipped by the Captain for an unknown reason.

The rest of the day would unfold normally, starting up a routine of relaxing, socializing and dining that would continue on throughout the voyage.

What may be the last photograph taken of the Titanic, as she steams away from Ireland's coast.

Don’t forget the Destined Blog Tour going on this week. Today's stop: Rainy Day Ramblings

Titanic Centenary: April 10

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:07:00 +0000

April 10, 1912

April 10 was a busy day for Titanic. It was sailing day, the first day of her maiden voyage. She would set off from her first port in Southampton, England, at noon, heading across the English Channel for Cherbourg, France.

Titanic's crew arrived first, around sunrise, filling the port and filing on board to get ready to receive her first passengers. All but one officer was on board, having spent the night on the ship in preparation. The last officer to arrive was Captain Edward Smith, who boarded around 7:30am. Around 9:00am, a mandatory lifeboat drill was carried out, where two of the lifeboats were filled with a few crew members, lowered to the water, then raised back up.

Around the time the lifeboat drill ended, J. Bruce Ismay, Director of the White Star Line, boarded with his family. Many would board the ship this day to tour her decks, then leave before she sailed. The train carrying the ship's second and third class passengers also arrived from London around this time, and boarding officially began. Among these passengers was William H. Harbeck and his companion, Henriette Yrois.

Deep inside the ship, in coal bunker #6, a fire was burning. This wasn't uncommon on a ship that used coal, and the Chief Engineer assured everyone that it would not damage the hull in any way. Some believe today that the fire may have, in fact, weakened the steel in that part of the hull, allowed it to be breached by the collision with the iceberg. The fire was not put out for two or three days.

Around 11:30am, the train carrying Titanic's first class arrived at the dock, and the ship's elite began to board. Among them: John Jacob Astor and his new, pregnant wife; Mr. and Mrs. Isador Straus, owners of Macy's department store; and Col. Archibald Gracie, who would later write a popular book about the sinking of the ship. Before Titanic left port, her second class passengers were allowed to tour the first class public areas, giving them a quick glimpse at how the other half lived.

At noon, the ship began to edge away from the dock. As she turned into the channel to head out, her size and increasing speed churned up the water enough that a suction was created, pulling two nearby ships, the Oceanic and New York away from their moorings. Ropes snapped, and the New York was set free. Captain Smith was made aware of the imminent danger and went into action, calling for the engines to be reversed, halting her movement. The New York was corralled by tugs and stopped before Titanic began to move forward again. While this was going on, more lines were added to Oceanic to prevent her from breaking free, and after a tense hour, Titanic was once again on her way. Her voyage had begun, but the incident with the other ships had delayed her an hour, and she would now arrive at her next destination late. A bad omen?

In Cherbourg, France, passengers waiting to begin their own journeys received news that the ship would be late. With no choice but to wait, they wandered the area, perhaps vented to one another about the inconvenience. Among them would be Benjamin Guggenheim, Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff Gordon, and Margaret Brown, known today as Molly, all traveling in first class.

Despite the late start, Titanic did not try to make up time as it crossed the Channel. Shortly after clearing the English coast, the bugle sounded, announcing dinner. Passengers congregated in the dining halls for their first meal on board. Conversation around the tables were surely excited after the recent near-collision.

The sun was beginning to set as Titanic finally arrived at the French port. She dropped anchor around 6:30pm and tenders began to ferry the cross-channel passengers and mail off. Other tenders carried the Cherbourg passengers to the ship, along with more mail. The entire process took about 90 minutes, and by 8:00pm, the sun had set and she was ready to set off for Ireland, lights blazing from every porthole. She must have been quite the sight to behold. The photo here was taken shortly after she dropped anchor, before it was fully dark.

At 8:10pm, the anchor was raised and Titanic set off down the English Channel towards Ireland, her final stop before heading out to sea.

Don’t forget the Destined Blog Tour going on this week. First stop: Bona Fide Reflections

Titanic centenary news stories

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 20:37:00 +0000

This week, I plan on doing a day-to-day posting of the Titanic’s maiden voyage, although I haven’t yet figured out what I will write on April 12-13, since those two days were relatively boring on board the ship. Since the ship’s maiden voyage didn’t begin until April 10, here’s a post you can refer back to as the week goes on for news stories around the world. Many news sites have Titanic sections where they link each new article as it goes up, so check back every day to see what’s been posted! I’ll try to add to this as I find things as well.

New York TImes

Includes PDFs of articles from 1912. Interesting stuff, especially some of them that were printed as they were following the news via wireless, and didn’t know if anyone was going to survive.
An interesting article written by the grandson of Lawrence Beesley

Irish Central

They recently posted an article about Jeremiah Burke that adds a little more information to what I had in an earlier post.
Also, an article about Eugene Daly that includes his own account of the sinking, including his story about an officer shooting two men and then himself. It’s a pretty interesting read if you have the time.
A short article about Catherine Walsh, a 2nd Class Stewardess and one of the few female crew members to die in the sinking.
A profile of Nora Keane, one of Edwina Troutt’s roommates. Includes her first-hand account of the sinking.

BBC.co.uk Includes an interesting article listing some of the myths perpetuated by various films

Update on various things

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 19:47:00 +0000

So far, this year has been a lot busier than I’d anticipated. Good, I suppose, except that I would have liked more of that busyness to be writing-related. Maybe that will be the second half of my year. *fingers crossed* Instead, I’ve been busy with day job stuff, family stuff and more fun (but still not writing-related) trip-to-Paris-planning stuff.

If I find inspiration for a new book while in Paris, can I claim the trip as a business expense? ;)

I admit I’m using blogging today as a tool to procrastinate. I’m in the middle of re-designing our website at the day job, and after spending all week slowly re-coding the old pages to the new layout, I needed a break. Tomorrow, I’m going to see the Hunger Games movie (woo!), so I feel a little guilty that I’m using my one free weekend day to slack off, but that’s what weekends are made for, right?

I do have a feel things of note to mention, but before I get to the actual updating, I felt this post needed a pretty picture. A few weeks back, I took a photography tour at one of my most favorite places, Big Cat Rescuse. It was a Christmas present (thanks, Mom & Dad!), and while the cats weren’t as active as I had hoped, I managed to get some nice shots. Everything, in my opinion, is made better with cats. Especially gorgeous ones like this cougar.

Now for the updates. The next few months are going to be busy for me. Not only will I be editing my next book and preparing for my Paris trip in May, but April is the 100th anniversary of the Titanic disaster. Because of this, I’m aiming to do some extra promotion for DESTINED, in the hopes that whatever interest the anniversary raises will trickle down to me in the form of new readers.

First bit of promotion: I’m donating a copy of DESTINED to Ruby’s Reads Birthday Giveaway Hop, which will be happening from April 12-24. When I have more details, I’ll be sure to post them here.

Second, I’m going to be doing my very own (and very first) blog tour. It’s a short one, due to the late notice (I only got the idea last week. Whoops!) and because it coincides with the Titanic anniversary, which is less than a week. The blog tour will run for 5 days, from April 10 – April 14. The wonderful Parajunkee is organizing it for me, and is currently finalizing the list of bloggers that will be involved. If this tour goes well, I’ll probably do a longer one for the release of my next book. (If I ever find enough time to get the damn thing edited!) Again, I’ll update here once I know more.

Third, I’m hoping to do a series of posts here that same week about the Titanic, as a kind of tribute to the ship’s maiden—and final—voyage. It will depend on if I have the time to write that many posts in advance, but my aim is to do something each day about that corresponding day of the voyage, along with a short spoiler-free snippet from DESTINED that goes along with the day featured.

In blog-related news, thanks to a post I stumbled across today over at Fiction VIxen’s blog, I discovered my own blog settings weren’t really optimal. I’ve remedied that, and now anyone can comment to my posts without having to log in or register somewhere first, and no one should have to use Captcha anymore. Hopefully these new settings won’t get me spammed to high heaven. I really want this blog to be user-friendly, and since I personally hate dealing with Captcha and don’t comment if I have to register first, it was pretty hypocritical to expect my own readers to deal with both roadblocks. I promise, it was never intentional. It must have been the default Blogger settings, and I never caught them before. So thank you to Fiction Vixen for inspiring me check it out!

Now that the updates are out of the way, I think I’m going to use the what’s left of my afternoon editing the still-untitled (I suck at titles) next book.

Titanic Tuesday: Myths & Legends

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:13:00 +0000

The Titanic has always been a subject of interest for people, even before the movie in 1997 brought it back to the forefront of public attention. And now, with the 100th anniversary of the disaster approaching, I imagine it’s going to be popping up everywhere again. Books, movies, documentaries, you name it. I’m excited, because I can never get enough Titanic (though I doubt I will be seeing the 3D re-release of the film, despite it being my favorite movie. 3D gives me a headache, and it’s been my experience that movies converted into 3D after the fact aren’t very effective. I prefer to watch it in its original format. I don’t need the iceberg coming out of my screen at me, or Rose’s hand reaching out towards me during the cargo hold scene – and you know they won’t be able to resist doing that.).

But with all the renewed interest and publicity, many long-standing myths and legends are bound to pop up again. “Facts” that get told over and over despite being untrue, passed along because people hear it often enough, they assume it’s reality. After all, we no longer have any first-hand witnesses living to set us straight, and even if we did, not all of them were always 100% reliable. Eyewitness testimony is hardly infallible, after all. Some people insisted to their dying day that the ship went down intact, and we know that’s not the case now that the wreck has been found. Others have conflicting stories about gunshots, officer suicides, where Captain Smith was, and how/if the third class was trapped belowdecks. For most of these, we’ll never really know the truth, because unlike Apolline in Destined (shameless self-promotion shout-out!), we can’t go back and see it for ourselves.

There are, however, many facts about the ship we do know, and myths that have been busted, yet still linger on. So I thought I’d take the opportunity in today’s Titanic Tuesdays post to point some of them out.

There was not a mummy in the cargo hold. I’m not sure where that myth started, but it pops up now and then, even today. Researchers have never found proof that such a thing existed on the ship. Some believe the story came about because one of the passengers, William T. Stead, told his dinner companions about the mummy, which was on display in London at the time, and after the disaster, memories became jumbled and his story about the mummy turned into a story that it was on board the ship (and due to a curse, the cause of the disaster).
The Titanic was not the first ship to use S.O.S. as a distress call. While it is true that S.O.S. was relatively new at the time (up until then, the standard distress call was C.Q.D.), the signal was used first by Germans in 1905, then adopted as a the new worldwide standard in 1908. It took time to catch on, which is why most ships took a while to switch over from the CQD they were used to.
The officers (or White Star Line) were not trying to make a speed record on Titanic’s maiden voyage. Her maximum speed, with all boilers lit, was only 21 knots, and there were already faster ships out there. However, all of her boilers were never lit, and she was following a longer, more southerly route in order to (irony alert) avoid icebergs. Also, if they had tried to get into port on Tuesday night, rather than Wednesday, as many rumors stated, it would have been a huge inconvenience to everyone on board. Just imagine the uproar from the elite in First Class at being brought to shore the night before they had made arrangements to be picked up or transferred to trains (not to mention all the hotel reservations starting on Wednesday)!
J. Bruce Ismay, managing director of the White Star Line, was not quite the villain many believe. His biggest crime was surviving. He did not sneak onto a boat to save himself. He helped load the boats along with the other officers, and according to witnesses, entered a half-filled boat as it was being lowered only after being ordered to. It makes you think, really: many other men survived without being vilified for it, and many who perished tried to get on boats with little regard to the others around them. It’s a shame that Ismay had to live out the rest of his life under such a cloud when he did not really do anything wrong by getting on that boat. If it truly was already being lowered, the seat he took would have remained empty had he not boarded. If he had stayed on the ship, he would have died, but no one else would have survived in his place. Sadly, if he had stayed on board, he would probably be considered a hero today, right up there with Captain Smith and Thomas Andrews.
Another common story about Ismay is that he was pressuring Captain Smith to go faster (again, the speed record myth). We’ll never know for sure if this was true, though some passengers claimed to have overheard him talking to the Captain about picking up speed. Still, Smith was too experienced a sailor to take direction from a businessman like Ismay. He would not have altered his course or speed just to please him.
The Titanic was not felled by a 300-foot-long gash in her hull. While the damaged portion of the hull is still buried in sand, it has been determined that such a large gash is not likely. Instead, scientists say that the sinking was caused by the steel plates buckling under the force of the iceberg as it scraped along the side of the ship, popping off rivets as it went. Some believe the quality of the steel used in making the rivets was sub-par, and therefore caused them to fail. As the rivets popped off, seams were opened and water rushed in.
No one ever claimed the Titanic was unsinkable. While the ship was described as “practically unsinkable” by Shipbuilder magazine, no one ever declared it as such. It was true that she was built so that she would be very difficult to sink, but as fate would have it, the iceberg struck in just the right way to remind everyone that something that large and heavy can, in fact, sink. Had Titanic hit the berg head-on, it is very possible she would have limped away damaged, but still seaworthy. The watertight compartments were designed so that the ship would stay afloat if any two were filled, and even if the four forward compartments were filled. Unfortunately, sideswiping the berg meant six compartments filled, sending more water into the ship than she could handle. And as anyone who has seen the movie knows, the bulkheads separating the watertight compartments only reached up to E Deck. Once the ship started going down at the bow, water flowed over the tops of the bulkheads and began filling more compartments. The compartment in the front of the ship, however, reached higher, and therefore might have kept water from flowing back into the ship had it been the only section of the hull compromised.

I was going to continue this with film-specific inaccuracies, but rather than get too long, I’ll leave that for another week.

Titanic Tuesday: When hobbies collide

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:31:00 +0000

In addition to my obsession with all things Titanic, I am somewhat of an amateur genealogist. It’s something I discovered a couple of years ago (thanks to the NBC show, Who Do You Think You Are?, which I highly recommend), and got pretty addicted for a while. This past weekend, my mother (who was also bitten by the genealogy bug) brought something to my attention: we might have had an ancestor of the Titanic.

As it turns out, the man in question (John Coffey) is most likely not related to us, or at least not directly. But his story is an interesting one, and I thought it would be a good post topic. As we’re coming up to the centennial next month, I’m aiming to be more regular with these posts, so now is as good a time as any to get back into it.

Coffey is a name on my mother’s side of the family, and we’ve been able to trace our tree all the way back to an Edward Coffey, who came over to the US from Ireland in the 1600s. So while we do have some John Coffeys in our family tree, they were all born in the United States long before 1912, meaning the John Coffey on the Titanic would only be a very distant cousin, if he were even part of our family at all. Still, it’s a nifty connection, and the closest I’ve come so far to tracing my roots to the ship.

John Coffey was born in Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, in 1889. When he was 23, he was living in England after working on Titanic’s sister ship, the RMS Olympic. He then signed on to the Titanic as a fireman (or stoker) in Southampton, but did not remain on board for the full voyage. Instead, he snuck off the ship at Queenstown with the mail. Since the Queenstown dock was too small for the ship, Titanic docked offshore and smaller boats, or tenders, ferried passengers and mail on and off. RMS, after all, stands for Royal Mail Ship, and there was quite a bit of mail to be brought to shore. Coffey claimed to have hidden under the bags of mail on the final tender leaving the ship, and was soon reunited with his family. Most believe this was his reason for deserting the ship: to get a free trip back home. But after the tragedy, he often claimed that he slipped off due to a “bad feeling” about the ship’s fate.

Not much more seems to be known about him (that I can find online, at least), other than he supposedly signed on to the Mauretania after the Titanic sank, and that he eventually passed away in 1957. I did find an old forum comment at Ancestry.com from someone claiming to be his great grandson, but he didn’t offer any information publicly.

Another Irish passenger that has more information available, and connects more directly to my own book, is Eugene Daly. Daly was 29 years old when he boarded the Titanic in Queenstown, and was most known later for playing “Erin’s Lament” on his uilleann pipes (similar to bagpipes) while the ship left port. A third class passenger, he sat out on the bow and played, a somber farewell to his homeland. According to the Encyclopedia Titanica, his pipes went down with the ship, and he later filed a claim for them for $50. A set of pipes was salvaged from the wreck many years later that might have been his, but no one is certain.

Daly survived the sinking. He helped two women into a lifeboat (his cousin and her roommate) and boarded with them, only to be pulled out by an officer. (This from a letter he wrote to his sister) He later jumped overboard and swam to the overturned collapsible. He clung to it all night, as it was too crowded to get on, and later claimed he only survived due to the thick coat he wore. He was mentioned in many articles afterwards, testified in the hearings, and was one of the survivors to claim an officer shot two male passengers who were trying to board a lifeboat, then shot himself. There is a nice article written about him by his daughter here, if anyone is interested: http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/eugene-daly-his-daughter.html

According to his daughter, he and his wife sailed back to Ireland in 1921 to tend to his sick mother, and the voyage had him in a panic. He vowed never to sail across the Atlantic again, and they remained in Ireland until the early 1960s, after the death of his wife. At this point, he was able to fly back to the US to live with his daughter, and therefore avoided having to get on another ship. Daly passed away in New York in 1965.

I have read accounts of many survivors who refused to get on another ship again, or who found themselves too nervous or panicked the next time they tried. I can’t really blame them for it. I’m not sure I’d be too keen of sailing again if I’d been there, either!

Titanic Tuesdays; L’Amour de la Mer

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 20:17:00 +0000

I have been woefully lax in updating my blog lately. Frankly, I’ve been lax in most things related to writing. Work is busier, and I recently began planning a vacation, which seems to have overrun my brain. I’m treating myself to a week-long trip to Paris in May for the birthday. It’ll be my third trip there, but my first time traveling overseas by myself. Should be an adventure! Now that I’ve settled on and booked an apartment, I can take a step away and focus on other things for a little while. First order of business: dust off the blog.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, here’s a story I found that’s rather intriguing. A couple of Second Class passengers named Henry & Kate Marshall boarded at Southampton, only Marshall was not their real name. They were, in reality, Henry Morley and Kate Phillips, and were not married but rather eloping to the United States. Morley, nearly 40 years old, was already married, and had left his wife and daughter for his much younger mistress,19-year-old Kate, whom he met while she was working in one of his confectioner’s shops. He was a wealthy man, and gifted her with a beautiful sapphire necklace (sound familiar?) on board the ship. I have only found one photo of it online, and suspect there is copyright involved, so rather than post it here, I’ll link to it instead: L’Amour de la Mer (Love of the Sea).

As with most TItanic stories, this one ends in tragedy. Henry Morley was not allowed on the lifeboat with his mistress, and died in the sinking. Not long after that, Kate discovered she was pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter, Ellen, on January 11, 1913. Some like to say Ellen was conceived on board the ship, because it’s more romantic that way, but there’s no way to know for sure. It’s just as likely she was already a few weeks pregnant when the Titanic set sail. Some even say that her child might have been conceived after the sinking, but I find that less likely. Kate was a grief-stricken young woman, alone in an unfamiliar country in the early 1900s. When would she have the opportunity to start another love affair? She always insisted her child was Morley’s, and gave Ellen’s birth date and the fact that first pregnancies are said to stretch longer than 9 months (most people I know had their first children after their due dates), it stands to reason that Morley is the most likely paternal candidate.

The tragedy continues: according to Ellen herself, Kate Phillips never quite recovered from what happened to her. She was distant, abusive and self-destructive, and ended her life in a mental institution. Some reports say that Kate sold the sapphire necklace when she fell on hard times, while others say before she died, Kate gave the necklace (as well as the purse and cabin keys she had on her when put in the lifeboat) to Ellen. Ellen’s own granddaughter confirmed part of this, saying that she personally saw the cabin keys, but said that the necklace went down with the ship and was later recovered with other artifacts. It has popped up from time to time as part of Titanic artifact exhibitions.

Ellen’s paternity was never proven. Some say there was a DNA test done, but the results were never publicized. Ellen’s granddaughter as well as a member of Morley’s family have both said that DNA was never done, however, because the Morley family did not agree to it. So unless someone has kept some of Ellen’s hair, it may never be known for sure if she was the result of her mother’s Titanic elopement or not.

Some more links that might be of interest on this story:

Ellen’s story, in her own words: http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/ellen_phillips_story.html
Kate’s biography, along with some photos: http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-survivor/kate-phillips.html
The ET thread where both Ellen’s and Morley’s family weigh in: http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/5811/99997.html?1137698196
Another ET thread where Ellen’s granddaughter pops in: http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/5811/54465.html?1089621227
One more ET thread that discusses the DNA rumors further: http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/5811/50812.html?1190633087

And then it got stranger. While searching the forums for other posts on the subject, I found a topic from someone else claiming to be descended from Morley. What makes it so strange? They claim he was in Papua New Guinea in 1913-1914, where he married and had 5 children. A year or two after he supposedly died on the Titanic. Hm. Makes for a good story, at least: http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/5667/92353.html?1154695187

This blog started out as a romantic tale, but somehow it descended into weirdness. Still, it’s mysterious and intriguing (and the tale of Henry and Kate is still a romantic one, if you ignore the adultery), like many of the other mysteries that came out of the disaster. It’s no wonder I’ve been so fascinated by the ship for so long. I kind of wish I knew about Henry and Kate while I was still writing DESTINED. I could have given them a cameo. ;)

Marketing and promotion

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:43:00 +0000

When I decided to self-publish, I knew it wasn't going to be easy, and I knew I wasn't going to be an overnight bestseller (or even ever a bestseller, unless I was incredibly lucky). And I knew that my biggest struggle was going to be promoting and marketing myself. Despite minoring in Marketing in college, it's not my forte. I think that's due to my introverted nature: I'm not good at asking people to buy my book.

An example: I was at dinner with my parents a week or so ago, and our waitress caught sight of the book I was reading on my phone (the Kindle app was on the cover image at the time) and got all excited because she recognized it: it was written by her aunt, Jeaniene Frost. Small world, huh? After that, my parents urged me to tell her about my book the next time she came back to the table. I felt uncomfortable doing so, partly because she said she doesn't usually read books. But even if she was a big reader, I'd have felt awkward pushing my book on her. I don't like when people hard sell to me, so I'm overly sensitive to doing it with others. In the end, my father did it for me, and she acted like she was interested in checking it out, though I really doubt she remembered my name five minutes later.

Promoting online is a little easier, but I find it difficult to find places to do so. The big places are too expensive, and many of the others are booked solid far in advance. I have one small promotion set to go at the beginning of February, so I hope that generates some interest, and I've done a few giveaways. I know some authors are having success with Amazon's KDP Select program, but I don't like the exclusivity requirement, and since Destined is my only book right now, it wouldn't benefit me in terms of generating interest in backlist. I had an ad on GoodReads that didn't really do much, and ads on Facebook that I turn on and off occasionally. They get me a lot of likes on my Facebook page, and seem to generate a few sales, but in the end, the cost of the ad ends up more than the royalties I get from the sales. Still, it's books I might not have sold otherwise, so I'll take what I can get. I have a bunch of requests out for book blog reviews, and while many said they were interested, only a few have read it yet. Those that have gave it 4-5 stars, so I keep hoping more will get to it soon. Reviews are key, and the more I can get, the better. I only wish more people would review on Amazon. I get a lot of ratings and reviews on GoodReads, but only have 8 on Amazon.

I know the best promotion is publishing more books, so that's what I'm trying to work on. I have one with a beta reader right now, another that's on hold so I can get some distance from it before editing some more, and a third I've recently dusted off. It still needs an ending, but it has one thing going for it the other two don't: it has a TITLE. (For me, this is a big thing. Titles stump me like nobody's business.) It's also kind of a dystopia, which is big right now, so I feel like it would be smart to take advantage of the trend while it's hot. I would never write specifically to fit a current trend, but since the book is already (mostly) written, I might as well make the most of it, right?

I just wish there was some magical, easy way to get people to see my book. But there isn't, so I will continue to slog on, and try to find more time to get a second book out there. If only I didn't need my day job, then I'd have all the time in the world.

Any other authors out there with advice on promotion that worked for them? Or readers who'd like to share how they find books? I know personally, most of my book discoveries come from GoodReads, with the occasional suggestion from Amazon's "also bought" lists or book blogs For those of you on GoodReads, how do you feel when an author sends you a message promoting his/her book? I'm leery of doing that, but it's an option I consider now and then.

Because I’m feeling silly

noreply@blogger.com (Allison Kraft) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:17:00 +0000

I was playing around with the video camera on my new phone yesterday, and had to share this. This is one of my cats, Princess. She doesn’t drink like a normal cat most of the time. She prefers to either drink out of my water glass at night, while I’m reading in bed, or she sits patiently by the kitchen sink and waits for someone to turn on the faucet. Then she sticks her head under it and starts slurping. She also likes to climb into the shower after someone’s used it and tries to catch the drops that fall from the showerhead. She gets all wet, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She’s weird.

(hint: For both of these, if you click on the link below each video, it’ll bring up the vimeo page with the full-size videos.)

Princess drinking from Allison on Vimeo.

While I’m in my Vimeo account, might as well share my other video, which is Princess and Buffy as babies (the little black kittens – the orange ones are their brothers, who I adopted out when they were about 8 weeks old). They were awfully cute, weren’t they? The reason they’re in a cage in my bathroom is because they were born outside, to a feral mother, and I brought them in to socialize them. Since we had two other cats already, we had to keep them separated. It took them some time to warm up to me, especially Princess, who was the most skittish of the bunch, but they eventually did, thanks to lots of playing and bribery. (If anyone finds themselves in the position of socializing kittens, I have three words for you: Gerber baby food. The chicken flavor in particular – no onion – is like crack for kittens. You can see me giving it to them at the 4:27 mark.) This video was taken about a week after we caught the kittens and brought them inside. Even after only a week, they’d made massive improvement with me. They would even climb on me while playing, and let me touch them if they were distracted by a toy, each other, or the baby food. It was a slow process, but very rewarding in the end. That said, I’m not sure I’d do it again unless I was going to keep all the cats: giving those two boys up nearly killed me.

Aw, I’m getting all nostalgic, watching it again. *sniff*

Kittens from Allison on Vimeo.